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Watermelon, Cucumber, and Feta Salad with Mint

16 Jul

This might be the ultimate summer salad. I know, I know—how can someone say something so definitive about a salad when the salad in question contains only one single vegetable? In a season of garden abundance, can such a simple salad really be labeled as representative of the entire season? Well, yes.

That is, if the salad in question contains fresh, juicy chunks of watermelon, crisp slices of cucumber, cool hits of fresh mint, and tiny little squares of salty, flavorful feta cheese. On a hot day, I can’t think of anything better to eat, really. Well, aside from a nonstop conveyor belt delivery of popsicles, but if you’re looking for something with a bit more nutrition and heft, you might consider this salad.

The thing is, perfect as I think this salad is, while I was making it I kept on dreaming up other things I could do to it. I held back—mainly because I was going to be serving this salad to a crowd that contained children, and I didn’t want to completely repel anyone (though pairing watermelon with cheese certainly won me a few suspicious looks from the under-12 crowd)—but while writing down the recipe for this salad, my mind kept wandering over to thoughts of adding a diced jalapeno or serrano pepper, or maybe a light dusting of cayenne over each serving. I also think adding a bit of crumbled chèvre in lieu of the feta would be just lovely. If your garden is bursting with basil right now, a combination of basil and mint would pair nicely in here, or maybe forget the mint all together and just go with the basil. I know I just said this salad was perfect (and it really is, I swear), but I like to think that perfection doesn’t limit itself to one single incarnation. So try this salad as is, in all it’s glory, or maybe go in a slightly different direction and spice it up a bit. You can’t go wrong.

Last Year: Cherry Almond Strudel–so many flaky layers!

Watermelon, Cucumber, and Feta Salad with Mint Recipe

4 cups cubed watermelon

1 large cucumber, peeled, cut in half lengthwise, seeded, then sliced into half-moons

juice of ½ a lime

1/3 cup fresh mint leaves, stacked on top of one another then cut into ribbons

4 ounces feta cheese, cut into tiny cubes

pinch of black pepper or cayenne pepper

Combine watermelon cubes and cucumber slices in a colander set over a large bowl. Refrigerate and allow watermelon to drain for at least 30 minutes. At this point, you can leave the draining watermelon and cucumber in the refrigerator for several hours if you want to prep the salad ahead of time.

Remove drained watermelon and cucumber to a serving bowl. (You can either reserve the drained watermelon juice for another purpose, or just go ahead and do what I did: drink it, because it is so very delicious.) Squeeze the lime juice over the mixture, then sprinkle on the mint, feta, and pepper. Toss gently with a large spoon. Serve immediately.

Serves 6 to 10 people.

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Semolina Flatbread with Arugula, Mint, and Spinach Pesto

25 Jun

Generally, when I gather together the elements to make a meal, I attempt to strike a reasonably healthy balance of protein, grain, and vegetable.  In the winter months, you’ll see a fair amount of polenta and pasta sitting in for the grain component, their hearty and warm properties providing the perfect bit of comfort one seeks to counteract the cold and drizzly weather.  In the summertime, when the sun beckons and our meals are almost exclusively eaten outdoors, we eat hunks of bread with our slices of cheese and heaping plates of garden vegetables.  And during the intervening weeks, which means now, when the sun appears only sporadically and our days are often still drenched with the cold and the wet, our meals are punctuated with foods that exist in between, not too hot, not too cold, but a rather Baby Bear-like middle ground.

A flatbread like this, hearty and crisp with semolina, slathered with a pert combination of spicy arugula, fresh mint, and lots of lemon zest, is the perfect example of the type of accompaniment I like with my meals on these days of in between.  It’s a great companion for soups (cold weather), or salads (warm weather), and it packs up perfectly for a picnic (dreamy weather).  Paired with yogurt-marinated chicken skewers and some slices of fresh raw bell pepper, it was the defining element of a springtime dinner last week, on a day that couldn’t figure out if it wanted to be rainy or sunny, so it decided to be both several times over.

But, guess what else?  This flatbread has a bit of a secret weapon.  In addition to making a fine side dish at lunch or dinner, it is also able to transform itself, with the addition of a single ingredient, into a fantastic breakfast meal.  By simply cracking some eggs onto the flatbread midway through cooking, your flatbread emerges from the oven as a cross between a breakfast pizza and the most flavorful eggs and toast you’ve ever had.  Don’t want to bother with making the dough in the morning then sitting around waiting for it to rise?  I don’t blame you.  Luckily, you can get around it by throwing the dough together the night before, then leaving it to rise in the refrigerator overnight.  Come morning, you’re one step closer to fresh flatbread dotted with baked eggs, and some great leftovers for lunch or dinner, rain or shine.

Last Year: Mango and Avocado Salsa

Semolina Flatbread with Arugula, Mint, and Spinach Pesto Recipe

Semolina Flatbread:

¾ cup warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon honey

1 ½ cups bread flour

½ cup semolina flour

pinch sea salt

1 teaspoon rapid rise yeast

In a small bowl, or in a measuring cup, whisk together the warm water, olive oil, and honey.

In a large bowl, whisk together bread flour, semolina flour, pinch of salt, and rapid rise yeast.  Pour the water mixture into the flour mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon.  When the ingredients are well combined (the mixture will look a bit shaggy), start kneading the dough, still in the bowl, with your hands.  Knead the dough, turning it over onto itself several times, until it is smooth and somewhat shiny, about 3-4 minutes total.  Form the dough into a ball.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top of the dough, then roll it around in the bowl to coat it all over with oil.  Cover the bowl with a sheet of plastic wrap or a moistened towel, and leave the dough to rise for 1 ½ to 2 hours, until it is large and puffy and more than doubled in size.  Alternately, you can cover the bowl with plastic wrap and then place it in the refrigerator to rise overnight.

While the dough is rising, make the pesto.

Arugula, Mint, and Spinach Pesto

½ cup packed fresh arugula

¼ sup packed fresh mint leaves

1 cup packed fresh spinach

1 large clove garlic, roughly smashed

1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

2 tablespoons roasted almonds, chopped, sliced, or slivered

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus another ¼ cup for topping the flatbread after it bakes

salt and pepper to taste

In the bowl of a food processor or in a blender, combine arugula, mint, spinach, garlic, lemon zest, almonds, olive oil, and ¼ cup of Parmesan cheese.  Add salt and pepper to taste (the cheese is a bit salty already, so you won’t require much additional salt).  Process or bend the ingredients until they are fully incorporated and have turned into a rich paste.  You will have to stop several times to scrape down the sides of the bowl or blender, but it is necessary in order to make sure all the ingredients are properly combined.

Makes about ¾ cup pesto.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place a pizza stone or heavy baking sheet on the lower middle rack of the oven as it preheats.

Line a rimless or overturned baking sheet with a large piece of parchment paper, and set aside.

When the dough has fully risen (if you are taking the dough out of the refrigerator after it has risen overnight, allow it to rest on the counter for 20-30 minutes so it can lose some of its refrigerator chill and is easier to work with), turn it out onto a well-floured surface.  Using your hands, shape the dough into a 14-inch by 10-inch rectangle, gently stretching and poking the dough in order to coerce it into taking shape.  Place the rectangle of dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheet.  Spread the pesto over the surface of the dough, leaving a ½-inch border around the edges.

Slide the dough, still on its sheet of parchment paper, onto the heated baking sheet or pizza stone in the oven.  Bake for 10 minutes, until the edges of the dough are golden brown and slightly puffed.

If adding eggs to your flatbread, crack 3 to 4 eggs into a bowl.  After the flatbread has baked for 5 minutes, carefully pour the eggs onto the flatbread, directing the eggs as far from the edges as possible (if the eggs are too close to the edges they will simply slide off onto the hot baking sheet, which makes an incredible mess).  Bake the flatbread for an additional 5 minutes, until the egg whites are fully cooked and the egg yolks are slightly runny.  If you’d like your eggs firmer, add them a minute sooner so they have time to bake a minute longer.

Remove flatbread onto a wire rack to cool slightly.  Sprinkle with remaining ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese.  When bread has cooled a bit, cut into squares and serve.

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Garlic Naan

21 May

When anyone, anywhere, talks to me about Indian food, it is almost guaranteed that within the first two minutes of the conversation I will be asked whether or not I know how to make naan.  This, of course, is understandable.  Is there any Indian food more cherished than warm, soft, pillowy naan?  Sure, people may love spicy sauces, savory grilled meats, and crisply seasoned vegetables, but what is the one thing that every single person—regardless of their age or fondness for Indian food—reaches for when faced with a huge spread of Indian food?  Yeah.  They reach for the naan.  It is, in essence, soft and chewy buttered white bread, which, no matter who you are, you are almost guaranteed to love.

The interesting thing about me and my history of making Indian food is that for years I did not make naan.  Call it lack of investigation or intuitiveness in regard to technique, but I always thought that making naan meant having to build your own tandoor and, come on, even I know where to draw the line when it comes to cooking fanaticism.  Luckily, my interest in making naan eventually got the best of me and I started looking up ways to make naan at home without the aid of a clay oven that is required to heat up to a balmy 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.  Because having that sort of thing at home?  Yeah, that’s insane.

After years of trial and error, I believe I have come up with two fairly foolproof methods of making naan at home.  The dough, for those yeast-phobes out there, is the simplest part of the process.  You just mix, knead, then wait.  The cooking can happen one of two ways.  You can either cook each naan on top of a pizza stone that has been left to heat in your kitchen’s oven for about 30 minutes or so, or you can grill the flatbreads on an outdoor grill that has been heated as hot as it can possibly get without causing itself to melt.  I favor the grill method, but either one will work beautifully.

Last Year: Meyer Lemon Whiskey Sour

Looking for something to go with this naan? Peruse the Savory Salty Sweet Indian food archives to find a selection of delicious Indian recipe.

Garlic Naan Recipe

When I make naan with children, it is great fun to have each kid roll out his or her own naan, then watch me place it on the grill, close the lid, and eventually pull out a fresh, bubbly piece of perfectly cooked flatbread.  Though I have yet to convince every kid in my neighborhood (or even in my own house), that Indian food is delicious, it takes absolutely no effort at all to get kids to enjoy naan.

1 cup warm water

2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

1 large egg

¼ cup plain yogurt

4 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon finely minced garlic

4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

optional: toasted cumin seeds, coarsely chopped cilantro

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the warm water, yeast, and sugar.  Stir to combine, then allow yeast to bloom and foam (this should take no more than 5 minutes).  In a small bowl, combine the egg and yogurt and beat together.  Set aside.

When the yeast has foamed up a bit, slowly stir in the yogurt and egg mixture.  Slowly add the flour, ½ a cup at a time, until the mixture starts to come together.  Add the salt.

On a well floured surface, or in a standing mixer fitted with the dough hook, knead dough for 5 to 7 minutes, until it forms a smooth, elastic ball.  Shape dough into a tight ball, and allow to rise in a covered, well-oiled bowl for 2 to 2 ½ hours, until the dough has doubled in size and is quite soft and pillowy.

Gently punch down dough, then knead in the minced garlic.  Divide the dough into 8 pieces.  Form each piece into a tight round ball, then place on a well-floured baking sheet.  Cover dough balls with a lightly floured or oiled dish towel or sheet of plastic wrap, and allow dough to rise for 30 minutes.

While the dough is rising a second time, preheat your oven or grill as high as it will go (500 degrees is a good temperature for which to shoot).  If using an oven, place a pizza stone in the oven to preheat.

When the dough balls have doubled in size and the oven or grill is extremely hot, roll out one ball of dough at a time into a rough oval.  Right before you place the rolled dough onto the pizza stone or in the grill, use both hands to stretch the dough lengthwise just a tad.  Place the dough on the baking stone or in the hot grill, close the oven or grill, and allow the dough to cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until it is bubbly on top and golden brown beneath.  Quickly and carefully flip the dough over, brush the top with melted butter, and cook for an additional 1 to 2 minutes, until speckled with golden brown all over.

Place cooked naan on a large platter,  then cover with a large piece of foil or a dishtowel.  Continue cooking all the naan in this manner, covering each one after it has cooked.  If you wish, you can sprinkle each naan with a pinch of toasted cumin seeds and chopped cilantro.

Makes 8 very large and pillowy naan.

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