Archive | April, 2012

Roasted Fingerling Sweet Potatoes with Lemon Tarragon Aioli

12 Apr

Not too long ago, after admitting that I had a wee bit of a problem keeping up with the New Yorker, I noticed that, next to my bedside, there sat a leaning tower of old New Yorker issues just waiting to topple over in the middle of the night and trigger a bad dream about thunderstorms or exploding bombs (apparently I am very susceptible to sounds invading my dreams, because just last night I was awoken from a dream about being trapped in a horrible hurricane, only to realize that, oh, no! There really was a hurricane happening right at that moment, only to then realize that, nope, there was no hurricane, there was only my husband, wheezing/snoring in his sleep just inches from my face and giving me nightmares, but I digress).  Knowing that my dusty magazine pile was bordering on unreasonable, I began to stack the old New Yorker issues in my arms and take them to the recycling bin.

As I walked down the stairs, I noticed that several of the magazines were marked in the beginning few pages with a dogeared fold.  One issue sporting this feature would not be notable, but half a dozen?  Against my better judgment—I was, remember, supposed to be getting rid of these magazines—I fished a couple of magazines out of the pile and opened them up to their folded pages.  All of the pages, it turned out, were marked at the same place: the Tables for Two column, the short restaurant review that appears in the first few pages of the magazine, and, some of you might remember, the inspiration for this recipe.  As I soon recalled, for months I had been noting tasty-sounding dishes that were mentioned in the column, with the intention that I would someday gather together the elements in each recipe and then create them in my own way.  Hazelnut orange pesto?  That sounds delicious!  And now this, fingerling sweet potatoes with tarragon?  Sign me up.

Though I can’t remember the name of the restaurant that offered the inspiration for this dish, the thought of combining fingerling sweet potatoes with tarragon stuck in my brain and refused to budge.  Not knowing anything more about the presentation, other than the main ingredient and its accompanying herb, I thought of the way I’d like to see these two things come together.  Petite sweet potatoes roasted in olive oil until soft and crisp and paired up with a wonderfully garlicky, herby aioli sounded just right.

And it was.  The sweet, caramelized potatoes are a natural match with the creamy, forward flavor of the tarragon aioli.  If I am recalling things correctly, the restaurant was favorably reviewed in the New Yorker, and this little sample of a flavor pairing from the restaurant makes it clear why.  So, in what might turn out to be an ingenious excuse for having all those old issues of the New Yorker sitting around, I have decided to create a new category here on Savory Salty Sweet.  The category will be called, fittingly, Tables for Two, and it will feature dishes that I read about in the New Yorker column of the same name and felt inspired to make.  I don’t know how many recipes I will actually be able to create from this endeavor, but I am excited to find out.

Last year: Carrot Muffins

Roasted Fingerling Sweet Potatoes with Lemon Tarragon Aioli Recipe

If you can’t find fingerling sweet potatoes, just use the tiniest sweet potatoes you can find.  I have found that the tinier the potato, the more delicate its flesh, and that’s a real virtue in this recipe.  When you roast the potatoes, you want them to become pillowy soft and creamy with just tiny hits of crispness here and there on each slice.

2 pounds of fingerling sweet potatoes, sliced in half or in quarters in order to make all the potato slices a standard size (having them a uniform size will allow them to all roast at the same rate)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place sliced sweet potatoes on a large baking sheet, then drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Toss everything together, then arrange potatoes in a single layer.  Roast potatoes for 30 minutes, until the potatoes are soft and their edges have started to turn crisp.

Lemon Tarragon Aioli

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 large egg yolk

2 tablespoons fresh tarragon, roughly chopped

7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

To make aioli, combine lemon juice, mustard, garlic, egg yolk, and tarragon in a food processor or blender.  Process or blend until smooth, then, with the food processor still running, slowly add the olive oil until the mixture becomes smooth and thick.  Remove the lid, stir the mixture with a spatula or spoon to mix in any errant bits trapped on the sides or bottom of the bowl, then add salt and pepper to taste and process for a few more seconds to ensure that everything is smoothly combined.

Serve potatoes warm, with aioli drizzled on top, or in a small bowl on the side.

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Cider-Braised Greens

9 Apr

If it were up to me (and it is somewhat puzzling that it is not, considering the fact that I do all the cooking around here), every dinner I served would include these greens.  Lightly garlicky, slightly bitter, and mildly sweet with just a flash of spice, these are the greens that I turn to when I want to whip up something to accompany a basic meal of protein + carbohydrates.  Unfortunately, since many of my house’s food choices are not left entirely up to me, I don’t get to eat these greens all that often.  I could try and be polite about this, but there’s just no skirting the issue.  My kid, he hates leafy greens.

Many years ago, I was sitting in a Thai restaurant with my husband, pre-child years.  We were watching a family of four, two parents, two children, eat their dinner, and I was pleased to see that both kids in the family were happily tucking in pile after pile of sautéed greens, spicy green beans, and grilled tofu.  I watched and admired the family for quite some time, soaking in the spicy, vegetable-laden inspiration of their dining choices.  So, I thought, kids will eat greens and spicy food.  As it turns out, I was only half correct.  Those kids will eat greens and spicy food.

For a long time, I thought that the secret to getting kids to like a certain food was just offering that food to a kid many times (the rumored magic number of offerings before a kid will accept a rejected food is 20—that is, your kid has to taste and reject the food on 20 separate occasions before he or she will finally accept it, which is, to put it simply, disheartening and somewhat ridiculous) until the kid just breaks down and finally decides to eat whatever you are shoving at him.  I now know that the secret to getting your kid to eat food he claims he doesn’t like is…wait, there is no secret.  At least, I haven’t discovered it.  It seems as though the choices many kids make concerning the foods they will and will not eat are completely random.  My son will demolish an entire avocado that has been bathed in fresh lime juice and cracked black pepper, but his friend down the street suffers from a distaste of avocados that is so intense, he has taken to telling people that he is actually allergic to avocados and can’t even be around them.  My son loves salmon, but won’t go near prawns.  He will graze through our garden in the summer, stuffing handfuls of basil, parsley, and mint into his mouth, but if you try and offer him a lettuce leaf, he will back away as though you are waving an angry cobra at his face.

Maybe it’s not really a problem.  Maybe, because he is five, he is just being contrary.  Maybe one day, when he has outgrown his fear of leafy greens and is interested in exploring the world of cooked greens, he will appreciate a recipe like this.  There is not much I can do to in the meantime, save for offering him a tiny bite of my greens each time I make them, waiting in earnest for that magical 21st offering when he will fold under my persistence and finally give in.  If I am really persistent, I could have this nailed by the time he is six.  Maybe seven.  Okay, fine.  Twenty-seven.

With quinoa and grilled salmon

Cider-Braised Greens Recipe

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 large garlic cloves, cut into thin slices

large pinch of red pepper flakes

8 ounces of greens, rinsed and coarsely chopped (I used turnip greens, kale, and chard, but you can also use beet greens, collard greens, mustard greens, spinach, or whatever other cooking greens you have on hand)

½ cup unfiltered apple cider

salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add sliced garlic and pinch of red pepper flakes, and sauté, stirring frequently, for 10 to 15 seconds, until the garlic starts to release its aroma.  Add the greens all at once, stirring to coat the greens in the garlicky oil.  Sauté, stirring frequently, until the greens have wilted, about 3 to 4 minutes.  Pour the cider over the greens, stir to combine, place a lid tightly over the pan, and lower heat to medium-low.  Braise the greens for five minutes, until the cider has mostly reduced and the greens are tender.  Remove lid, stir in salt and pepper, and sauté for an additional minute until only a trace of the cider remains.

Serves 2.

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Double Chocolate Walnut Cookies

5 Apr

I’ve had these cookies in mind for a while.  The problem was, that was the only place the cookies could be found: in my mind.  There was no recipe I could dig up in a book, no bakery I could run to in order to hunt down the cookie.  The existence of the cookie—perhaps originating in a dream, because I simply refuse to believe that I am the only person on earth who dreams of cookies—was nowhere to be found.

Maybe that was a blessing.  Because I had only an imagined notion of what sort of cookie I wanted to eat—and yet I also somehow knew exactly what it was I wanted in the mythical cookie, that being lots of chocolate, a chewy middle, and big bites of walnuts—there was very little holding me back in the way of experimentation.  It was a golden opportunity, really.  I was going to create a cookie and there was nothing stopping me.

Except, of course, the unforeseen development of actually somehow nailing the cookie recipe on the first try.  No joke.  When I set out to make this cookie, I was envisioning days upon days of rejected cookie batches.  I was imagining myself eating cookie after cookie, faced with the fact that one batch was too crisp, or maybe not chocolaty enough.  What to do?  Well, I guess I’ll just have to get back to the drawing board.  Time to make and sample more cookies.

But no.  Here they are, the first batch I auditioned, and they are perfect in every way.  Practically bursting with chunks of bittersweet chocolate, the cookies are crisp at the edges and wonderfully soft in the middle.  Chunks of toasted walnuts invade every bite, and, dare I say it, the sweetness level is spot on.  I don’t know how it happened.  I only had to make one batch of cookies, which meant I only had to taste one batch of cookies.  Setting aside the fact that I somehow just satisfied a hazy cookie dream, I somehow feel as though I have made a mistake.  I promise to do worse next time.  You know.  So there will be more samples.

Last year: Roasted Poblano Johnnycakes

Double Chocolate Walnut Cookies Recipe

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup Dutch process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon espresso powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

½ cup gently packed light brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into medium chunks (about ¼-inch chunks at the largest)

1 cup (about 4 ounces) walnut pieces, toasted until browned and aromatic

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt.  Whisk together, then set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the melted butter, light brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  Whisk for 1 or 2 minutes to combine thoroughly.

Gently fold the flour mixture into the sugar mixture until the two are completely combined.  Stir in the chocolate chunks and toasted walnuts.  The batter will be extremely stiff and it should seem like there is a disturbingly high chunk-to-batter ratio.  This is a good thing.

Scoop the batter in heaping tablespoons (if your tablespoons are very heaping, you should end up with about a 2 tablespoon-sized scoop, which is perfect) onto a prepared baking sheet.  Space the scoops at least two inches apart.  I was able to fit 8 cookies on 1 large baking sheet.

Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, in the center of the oven for 10-13 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are just starting to look dry but the centers still appear soft.  Remove from oven and allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for about 2 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool.

Depending on the size of your scoops, you should end up with around 24 cookies, maybe more.

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