Dinner: A Love Story
Page 17
Turn off the heat and pour the batter onto the cookie sheet, using a rubber spatula to spread the batter evenly and quickly so it forms a thick pancake-like shape with the thickness of steak fries.
The batter will begin to firm up right away.
Cover the cookie sheet with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
While batter is chilling, combine the remaining 1 teaspoon salt, the cumin, garlic powder, and paprika in a small bowl and set aside.
In a large skillet, add 1/4 cup olive oil over medium-high heat.
Remove the batter from the fridge and cut into French-fry-type strips on the cookie sheet.
Add the fries to the olive oil and fry for 1 to 2 minutes a side, flipping with a spatula. (Don’t crowd the pan.) Remove the fries from the oil and season with the desired amount of spice mixture. If you think the spice mixture might scare off potential converts, then just add salt.
Spicy Oven Fries
Total time: 30 minutes
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
½ teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic salt
3 baking potatoes, cut into wedges (I get 12 wedges per potato)
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoons water
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
In a small bowl, mix together the cayenne, paprika, and garlic salt. In another medium bowl, toss the potatoes, oil, spice mixture, salt, and pepper with the water. (For whatever reason, I find the steam this water generates in the oven makes them crisp and fluffy.) Line a baking sheet with foil and coat it with cooking spray (crucial—fries will be hard to remove otherwise). Line up your fries in rows and bake for 25 minutes, or until they are crispy and golden.
Tip: Sometimes I fashion a piece of parchment paper into a cone and let the girls carry their stash around.
Zucchini Fries (aka “Green French Fries”)
Total time: 35 minutes
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs, whisked
1 cup bread crumbs, salted and peppered
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon paprika
2 medium zucchinis, cut into French fry wedges
Ketchup, for serving
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Set up the dredging stations: one rimmed plate for the flour, one for the eggs, one for the bread crumbs. Add the cayenne, garlic salt, and paprika to the bread crumbs and mix around with your fingers.
Dip the zucchini sticks first in the flour until lightly coated, then in the eggs. Roll them in the bread crumb mixture until well covered. Transfer the zucchini to a baking sheet lined with foil and bake until they are crispy and golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve with ketchup.
February 2007
The Royal Family (or How We Got Our Kids to Eat Salmon)
We have never been calorie counters in our house. The food pyramid is not something my children would recognize beyond a structure they might like to replicate with LEGOs. There have been a few instances where we talk about our plates resembling rainbows (hence our Rainbow Salad), but for the most part our philosophy on passing along healthy eating habits to the girls has always been hands-off: If they are eating roughly what we are eating, they are probably doing okay.
During this period of palate expansion, though, we came up with our own version of the food pyramid. Cinderella, Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty, and Ariel had already proven to be excellent bribery booty for toilet training, so we decided to assign royal titles to a few random superfoods we wanted the kids to eat and drink more of:
Milk was the prince.
Broccoli, with its almighty supply of vitamins and calcium, was the king.
Eggs were the queen, since, if we were to believe the headlines, they contained enough omega-3s to triple our children’s chances of getting into Stanford.
And salmon, pink and delicate, was the princess.
I can’t call this strategy foolproof—as both Lady Phoebe and Lady Abby still recoil at the sight of an egg five years later—but I do know that Princess Salmon has enjoyed a long reign. (It certainly didn’t hurt that Abby was in her “pink” phase when we introduced the fish.) No matter how it’s prepared, somehow we can always count on the girls to wolf it down.
Royal Salmon with Yogurt-Mustard-Dill Sauce
This is such a good weeknight dinner. It comes together so fast and the dipping sauce is just interesting enough to elevate it to something special. Total time: 20 minutes
1 salmon fillet (about 1½ pounds, cut into 6 4-ounce pieces)
Salt and pepper
½ cup plain yogurt
1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Squeeze of fresh lemon
Preheat the oven to 450°F.
Sprinkle the salmon with salt and pepper. Line a baking dish with foil, place the salmon in it, and roast for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, mustard, dill, lemon, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve salmon pieces with a dollop of sauce.
Sweet Barbecue Salmon
Hoisin sauce is ridiculously sweet, which helps makes this dish an easy sell. Total time: 45 minutes (includes 30 minutes hands-off marinating time)
1 salmon fillet (about 11/4 pounds)
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 to 2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
Juice from 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
Preheat oven to 400°F.
In a small baking dish, marinate the salmon in the oil and soy sauce for about 30 minutes. In a small bowl, whisk together the hoisin sauce and lime juice. Set aside. Roast the salmon for 12 minutes, flesh-side up, then brush on the sauce, turn heat to broil, and broil another 3 minutes.
Note: You can also grill this salmon over medium-hot coals: Grill salmon for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, then brush the flesh side with the hoisin-lime sauce and grill, flesh-side down, for another 3 minutes.
Thai-ish Salmon
Browning the salmon in a skillet and then allowing it to finish cooking in a pool of aromatic coconut milk gives the fish the most delicate texture. A few years later we referred to it on the website as “Salmon for People Who Are Sick of Salmon,” and it has been one of the most popular recipes to date. Total time: 30 minutes
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 salmon fillet (about 1½ pounds), salted and peppered
1 tablespoon finely minced fresh lemongrass (white part of the stalk), available at Asian markets and quality supermarkets
1 tablespoon chopped scallions (white and light green parts)
2/3 cup light coconut milk
Juice from 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
1½ teaspoons Thai red curry paste (available in the Asian section of most grocery stores)
Handful of cilantro, chopped
Handful of basil, chopped
Handful of any vegetables you and the kids like: chopped green beans, peas, chopped shiitake mushrooms
Heat a large skillet to medium-high heat and add the oil.
Place the salmon in the skillet flesh side down and cook for 3 or 4 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove from the skillet and set aside.
Reduce the heat to medium-low. Add the lemongrass and scallions and stir around for 1 minute. Add the coconut milk, lime juice, and curry paste. Whisk together and let simmer for about 3 minutes.
Add the salmon back in, skin side down, nestling into the sauce. Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Add the cilantro, basil, and desired vegetables.
Simmer for another 7 to 8 minutes. Serve with jasmine rice, more cilantro, scallions, and a squeeze of lime.
LAZY PARENT’S DARK SECRET: THE RITUAL
Having a hands-off approach to healthy eating is pretty consistent with our parenting philosophy in general. Have you ever read the instructions on a cast-iron skillet? It goes something like this: Do not clean this
product too well. The fat and flavor left in the pan after cooking helps your skillet build a naturally nonstick surface. Can I tell you how much I love instructions that reward laziness? Braising is like that, too—the longer you ignore the hunk of beef or pork simmering away in a pot, the more the meat will melt off the bone. So is playtime: No one was happier about that study encouraging parents to give their kids unstructured time with limited parental intervention (not to be confused with limited parental supervision!). Apparently this was the secret to getting kids to build imaginations and rich inner lives. (No one would ever accuse me of being a Tiger Mother.)
But my all-time favorite example of laziness, which also happens to qualify as good parenting, is the Ritual. To be more specific, the ritual of a family walk after dinner on warm summer nights or to the farmers’ market every Saturday morning between April and November; the ritual of the kids selecting where they’d like to celebrate their birthday dinner (they choose a country, like Sweden, and then we find a restaurant to match that country); the ritual of dancing to Music Together or Jack White or Taylor Swift or the Nutcracker after dinner and before bed; the ritual of bath-book-bedtime every night and of a bowl of fresh fruit first thing in the morning; the ritual of eating pancakes or bagels in front of Dora or the Backyardigans or (later) iCarly on Saturday morning; the ritual of me giving Andy a good bottle of bourbon for our anniversary every October. (And don’t try to tell me that bourbon has nothing to do with parenting.)
Kids crave routines and rituals—your pediatrician probably told you that at your first baby’s first weigh-in. But I think parents—okay, maybe just this parent—craves routines and rituals even more. Because, yes, yes, yes, as outlined above, I know it’s comforting to my children on some level to know that they’ll be able to sit down with their parents every night for dinner, but it’s also comforting to me because there are just so many other things to keep track of. (I always remember that scene in I Don’t Know How She Does It when Kate Reddy’s boss, who has just lost his wife to cancer, comes to the office completely overwhelmed by all the things his wife did without his noticing. “You wouldn’t believe how much there is to remember, Kate,” he told her. And to herself Kate says, “Yes, I would.”) In other words, when there are twenty-five things on the to-do list already, I don’t want to waste energy figuring out how to ensure we have quality time with our kids for the three hours we are with them on a weekday (hence: Family Dinner plus After-Dinner Dancing). I don’t want to tap my small supply of creative juices trying to outdo last year’s special birthday celebration (hence: Our Pick-a-Country ritual). In other words, when there are so many little things to think about, it’s comforting to know that I have a few of the big things running on autopilot.
May 2008
Pork Chops Tonight?
JR: I’m home. We have pork chops. Any ideas?
AW: Awwww yeeeaaah. Get mustard apples onions ready.
JR: Onion diced or sliced? Mustard Dijon or grainy?
AW: Sliced. Either. I’ll take it from there.
Mustardy Pork Chops with Apples and Onions
Total time: 30 minutes
Olive oil
4 boneless pork chops (about 11/4 pounds), salted and peppered
1 large onion, sliced
1 apple, peeled and slivered to the same width as onion slices
2 tablespoons mustard (Dijon or grainy)
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 cup apple cider, water, or apple juice
Add the oil to a large skillet (that has a lid) over medium-high heat. Brown the pork chops, about 4 minutes on each side. (They do not have to cook through.) Remove them from the pan and turn the heat to medium-low. Add a little more oil, if necessary, and then add the onions and apples and cook 5 to 7 minutes, until they have wilted.
Add the mustard, vinegar, and cider to the pan, scraping up any brown pork bits from the bottom and bring to a boil for about 1 minute. Add the pork chops back to the pan, nestling them with the onions and apples; reduce to simmer. Cover and cook another 5 minutes, until chops have cooked through. If pan-sauce is liquidy, remove chops and boil sauce for another minute.
September 2008
Entertaining, Part 3
I know what you’re thinking: enough already about Andy’s Pork Ragù! And didn’t I already write about how to cook for dinner guests without humiliating (or hurting) yourself way back in Part 1? I did, yes, but that was 1998. When Steve Madden slides were in style! I need to make sure something is very clear: Entertaining when you are in your twenties, in your first small apartment, with no money and no kids, is a completely different beast from entertaining in your thirties or forties when both you and your guests have a real kitchen, real kids, and real expectations. To begin with, you are probably no longer cooking for people who are mostly subsisting on ramen noodles, Hot Pockets, and that dirt-cheap Thai spot around the corner. At least that was the case for me. Because during the ten years that elapsed between first attempting to cook for people and this point, a lot had happened. Chefs became celebrities. Michael Pollan became a superhero. And a lot of my friends became food snobs.
I mean that in the nicest possible way.
These were the friends I was learning from and working with, the ones who could appreciate not just the deliciousness but the sustainability of our whole grilled mackerel and the in seasonness of our peppery arugula salad. The only problem is, I would stress about cooking for food snobs in a way that I wouldn’t for normal types. Quite often during this period, on the day before food-snob guests arrived, I would find myself reexamining everything in my repertoire, everything in my pantry, and every shred of self-worth I had worked so hard to cultivate in my career as a grown-up. (Nope, not proud of this.) The plastic bottle of raspberry-lime seltzer water that I picked up by the case at Trader Joe’s suddenly looked crass when one of these guests requested a glass of Pellegrino before starting on the wine. (He looked at the bottle, looked at the glass, then said, “I’ll try anything once!”) When discerning guests came over, I’d rearrange the contents of my refrigerator—hiding Andy’s “lite” (aka heart-healthy aka processed) butter behind my organic real butter or making sure the produce from the farmers’ market and jars of homemade pickles were front-row center.
Pork Shoulder Ragù with Pappardelle.
Needless to say, this behavior was completely confounding to Andy. “What is wrong with you?” he once asked when I told him I was going to drive to a decidedly out-of-the-way Italian specialty market to pick up my favorite fresh ricotta for a pizza I was thinking of making. “You’re acting like you’ve never cooked anything before. Why are you making this so hard on yourself?”
Needless to say, this drove me nuts. How could he not recognize an up-theante situation when it presented itself?
Because he is an emotionally stable person. Who always ended up bringing me back down to earth. And so did the kids, of course. By necessity, having them around forced me to cool it on the impress-my-friends instinct because I’d have to ask myself things like: Does it really make sense for me to spend an entire Saturday morning in pursuit of truffled pecorino on one of the only days of the week I get to spend with my daughters? Why am I making seven different salads instead of just one beautifully simple salad that both the kids and grown-ups will like? What exactly am I trying to prove?
That’s actually the punch line to all this: No matter how much I fretted about menu planning for food-snob friends and their kids, no matter how many miles I’d drive for the freshest, bestest ingredient that would crown me Most Valuable Cook in the exclusive inner circle of my own warped mind, the menu invariably would end up looking exactly the same as it did when we’d cook for people who wouldn’t be able to pick a butternut squash out of a lineup. After five years cooking with/for/around kids, we realized that we were pretty much only capable of cooking in one gear: simply. And it turned out that was the only gear we needed, no matter who was sitting at the table.
&nbs
p; Go-To No-Fret Impress-Your-Friends Entertaining Menus for Each Season
We’ve had really good luck making these menus for families—snobby food families and otherwise. It was easy to find them because in my diary, I usually add a note underneath the lineup that says something like Perfect!
FALL: Braised Beef Short Ribs, Kale with Avocado and Pickled Onions
WINTER: Pork Shoulder Ragù with Pappardelle, Sautéed Chard with Horseradish
SPRING: Salad Pizza
SUMMER: Bourbon-Marinated Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Grilled Peaches, Old-Fashioned Coleslaw
COOK A SIGNATURE
Another strategy I fall back on when I’m menu-planning for dinner guests is the cook-a-signature strategy. By signature, I don’t mean the tuna and white bean casserole your grandma Sadie was famous for—I mean a much-heralded recipe that has been developed by one of the Greats (Julia, Jacques, Marcella), a time-tested, guaranteed showstopper that has already been ingested and enjoyed in millions of homes before yours, sometimes even on holidays and special occasions. They’re sophisticated. They’re special. They’re classic. They say, “I know something about food.” You still have to cook it, and generally these kinds of dishes are more time-consuming than, say, Andy’s pork ragù—but there’s a lot less stress involved when you know you’re going with a sure thing.
Here are some of my favorites. You probably have at least one or two of these cookbooks on your shelf already.