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Super Crunchy Fennel, Apple, and Celery Salad

6 Mar

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I had the idea for a great, crisp salad, loaded with fresh fennel and crisp apples. I had celery on hand, so I threw some in. The tops of the fennel were chopped up at the last minute and sprinkled about, and the result was nothing short of phenomenal. With a super light dressing of just lemon juice and olive oil, followed by a handful of raw pepitas, the salad came to life, earning a spot on my list of top five most favorite salads. Super crisp, wonderfully flavorful, and a reminder of warm days to come, it’s definitely going to make a few repeat appearances around here.

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Last Year: Quinoa, Arugula, and Roasted Beet Salad with Ginger Sesame Dressing and Beet Greens and Chèvre Quiche–look at me, using every part of the beet.

Super Crunchy Fennel, Apple, and Celery Salad

One of the great things about this salad is the fact that the vegetables and fruit are sliced incredibly thin—we’re talking whip-out-the-mandoline-slicer thin—allowing each bite to cram in as much of each salad element as possible. As mentioned, I used a mandolin to slice everything as thin as possible, but you could also just use a super sharp knife and slice away.

2 cups fresh fennel, sliced super thin (about 1 large bulb), core removed, leaves set aside

2 cups super thin apple slices (about 2 small apples)

1 cup super thin celery slices (sliced across, not lengthwise, obviously)

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons olive oil (using extra virgin olive oil will result in a much more punchy dressing, and using a lighter olive oil will give you a milder background of dressing)

big pinch of sea salt

big pinch of freshly ground black pepper

handful of fresh fennel leaves, roughly chopped

¼ cup raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

In a large bowl, combine fennel, apple, and celery.

In a smaller bowl, add lemon juice, then slowly whisk in olive oil until the mixture is thick and emulsified (this shouldn’t take more than about 30 seconds). Whisk in salt and pepper, taste for more seasoning, and adjust as you see fit.

Pour dressing over fennel, apple, and celery. Toss to combine. Add chopped fennel leaves and pepitas, toss just a couple of times, then serve.

Serves 4 as a side salad, 2 as a main dish salad.

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Roasted Cauliflower with Pine Nuts and Lemon Brown Butter Breadcrumbs

19 Nov

You read that right. Lemon brown butter breadcrumbs.

It’s no mistake that I am publishing this recipe this week, when people all over the country are getting ready to fire up their stoves and partake in a day-long marathon of cooking, baking, basting, and then, thankfully, eating. I have long thought that eating a holiday meal made almost entirely out of side dishes would be the most special of meals, and if anyone ever wants to take part in this idea with me, I’ll be bringing this dish of roasted cauliflower tossed with crisp, brightly flavored breadcrumbs that somehow mange to be both light and decadent at the same time.

Last Year: Pear and Chocolate Bread Pudding

Roasted Cauliflower with Pine Nuts and Lemon Brown Butter Breadcrumbs Recipe

The breadcrumbs that adorn this dish are almost the same as a sauce polonaise, save for the fact that this version swaps out crumbled hard boiled eggs for briefly toasted pine nuts. If you are looking to make this dish more of a one-meal affair, adding a chopped hard boiled egg or two would certainly up its protein quotient, making it stretch a bit further towards being a complete meal on its own.

1 large head of cauliflower, leaves and core removed, florets cut into roughly 2-inch long pieces.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon minced shallots

¼ cup panko breadcrumbs (or other dry, unseasoned breadcrumbs)

¼ cup pine nuts

salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Toss cauliflower florets with 2 tablespoons of olive oil (I do this directly on the same heavy duty baking sheet I use to roast the cauliflower), then sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Arrange cauliflower on a heavy duty baking sheet, placing as many of the cut sides down as possible, then roast in the center of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until the cauliflower is deeply caramelized on the bottom and lightly golden on top.

While the cauliflower is roasting, melt the butter in a small skillet or pan over medium-low heat. When browning butter, it is always best to do so in a light-colored pan so you can closely gauge the changing of the butter’s color. Slowly cook the butter, swirling the pan around every few seconds so the butter cooks evenly. The butter will begin to foam, then spatter a bit, and then you’ll see the little dots of milk solids begin to turn brown at the bottom of the pan. This can take anywhere from 4 to 8 minutes, so be sure to watch the butter very carefully to keep it from burning.

When the dots of butter solids have turned a nice medium brown and the butter begins to emit a lovely nutty aroma, stir in the lemon juice. The mixture will spatter a bit, but that is to be expected. Immediately stir in the minced shallots, then cook, stirring frequently, until the shallots have softened (this should take 3 to 5 minutes). When the shallots have softened, stir in the breadcrumbs. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the breadcrumbs turn golden brown. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Remove breadcrumb mixture from pan. With the pan still set over medium-low heat, toast the pine nuts in the pan, stirring frequently, until they are golden brown all over, about 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Arrange cauliflower on a serving platter. Spoon breadcrumb mixture over the cauliflower. Sprinkle over toasted pine nuts. Add chopped parsley. Serve as soon as possible.

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Turkey Pear Sausage with Ginger and Sage

8 Nov

There comes a time in every person’s life—that is, if the person in question likes to cook, and by “likes to cook,” I mean “is slightly unreasonable when it comes to wanting to spend time in the kitchen”—when you’ve just resigned yourself to the fact that, sooner or later, you are just going to have to learn how to make sausage. It’s not because you eat a lot of sausage (you don’t), and it’s not because you think that making sausage will be so much more economically sound than buying sausage (I have no idea if it is or not). It’s because, when you really, really like to cook, sooner or later the list of things you have made in the kitchen starts to seem a little barren when you add up the list of things you’ve never attempted to make.

But I do like cooking, and I do like learning new things, so it seems only natural that, eventually, I was going to learn about how to make sausage. Because why not?

The first thing I learned about sausage is that sausage can be any number of things, but it is, generally speaking, a mixture of tiny bits of ground up meat and fat mixed with seasonings. Because the relative simplicity of the very description of sausage, it’s the perfect medium for combining flavors and elements of one’s choice. Not being a fan of pork, I decided to make my sausage out of ground turkey (the higher the fat content the better), and, because I realize that ground turkey can have a tendency to get sort of dry, I added a shredded pear to the mix to stave off dryness. Because pears love ginger so much, it seemed only natural that I should add some ginger to the mix. Sage seemed like a natural progression after that, and by the time I was done, all I could do was wonder why it had taken me so long to make something so delicious. The bite is tender and juicy, the spices are delightful, and the mix of earthy sage and bright ginger are a perfect match.

Turkey Pear Sausage with Ginger and Sage Recipe

As you can see, this is a recipe for bulk sausage. I have never tried to convert this recipe to make sausage links, so, if you are in possession of some casing and a sausage stuffer and you think you might want to try this out as link sausage, please know that I have absolutely no idea if it will work or not. However, if you do try to make linked sausage from this recipe, please do let me know how it turns out!

1 pound of ground turkey, not lean

1 large pear, shredded using the larger shredding holes on a box grater (you should end up with roughly ¾ of a cup of shredded pear), drained of any excess juice

3 tablespoons finely shredded onion (again, use a box grater for this)

1 medium clove finely mashed and minced garlic

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

½ teaspoon finely minced fresh sage (or scant ¼ teaspoon dried sage)

¼ teaspoon dried marjoram

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

½ teaspoon sea salt

pinch of ground nutmeg

pinch of dried coriander

In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients (again, make sure the shredded pear is well drained of any excess juice, or else your sausage mix will end up too loose). Gently mix together using a flexible spatula or your hands. Mix until everything is well combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

To cook sausage, form patties in the size of your choosing. Heat a bit of olive oil in a nonstick pan or cast iron skillet set over medium or medium high heat, then add the sausage patties when the oil is hot. Cook patties, being careful not to crowd the pan, until they are sufficiently browned on each side and cooked all the way through, about 3 to 4 minutes for smallish-sized patties.

Makes a little over 1 pound of bulk sausage.

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