Watermelon Radishes: There Ought to be a Slaw!

My sister Robin, brother-in-law Dave, and I were getting ready for our friend Rafael's Halloween birthday party at the home of mutual pals in Harvard, MA. As usual,  Dave had been cooking up a storm. Grilled flank steak that would become mini steak and blue cheese sandwiches. Dave's version of the incomparable Momofuku pork belly buns. 

However, one dish was still a work in progress as we headed to the penultimate Seacoast Growers' Market. The main ingredient was goose from the guys at Yellow House Farm. Dave had used Ming Tsai's Red Roast Duck recipe from the Blue Ginger cookbook to prepare the goose. It tasted delicious. The question now was how to serve it. Dave's original thought was the shred it and fold it into a lettuce leaf, but he wanted some kind of garnish to go with it.

Until we stopped by to see Garen Heller at the Riverside Farm stand, we'd been talking about shredding some carrots and scallions and making a little sauce. Then we discovered watermelon radishes and Garen's recipe for Asian Watermelon Slaw. Immediately, our imaginations' taste buds kicked into gear. We knew the rice wine and soy sauce would be a delicious foil for the rich, slightly sweet goose, while the rosy pink color would perfectly accentuate the meat and lettuce.

We adapted Garen's original recipe somewhat to suit our purposes as a condiment, rather than a slaw. We chose to add more sesame oil, soy sauce, and vinegar, instead of the yogurt, because we wanted a consistency that was more vinaigrette-like than creamy. As there would be a ginger-scallion dipping sauce, we left the ginger out of the slaw itself and reduced the amount of honey. Finally, we added an additional dash of fish sauce to give it an extra umami kick.

The resulting "Goose in Lettuce Leaves with Asian Slaw" was a real hit at the party -- but I think the original recipe would make a delicious side for any meat or seafood dish with an Asian bent -- or an excellent accompaniment to your favorite Asian noodle dish. It's also a easy way to use a vegetable that's colorful, tasty, and good for you.

Garen's Watermelon Radish Slaw

Serves Two

Ingredients

For the slaw:

3 medium watermelon radishes

1 carrot

1T fresh ginger root (or more to taste)

1 medium red onion (1/4 cup grated)

For the dressing:

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons yogurt or mayonnaise (or more if desired)

Splash of Thai fish sauce (optional)

Instructions

1. Grate all the slaw ingredients

2. Blend the dressing ingredients together

3. Toss slaw and dressing together and serve on a bed of greens

Lasagna with Chard: In Practically No Time.

Like many foodies, I have subscriptions to the usual cooking magazines: Saveur, Food & Wine, Bon Appétit. And I still haven't forgiven Condé Nast  for the loss of Gourmet. But I find that my real go-to source for recipe ideas is The New York Times.

I'm a total fan of Mark Bittman and his Minimalist columns. I can't wait to check out the Wednesday food section and the Sunday Magazine recipes each week. Oh yes, and several times a week, I go online to see what Martha Rose Shulman is featuring in her ongoing series, Recipes for Health, where she focuses on a particular seasonal produce item, grain, or pantry ingredient to inspire meals that are delicious, easy, and nutritious. In fact, her recipes have just been collected and published in a new cookbook, The Very Best of Recipes for Health: 250 Recipes And More from the Popular Feature on NewYorkTimes.com. Last year about this time, she published a recipe for a vegetarian lasagna with chard, tomato sauce and ricotta. I didn't make it then, but I filed it away in my mind (and on my computer).

So after I came home from the Seacoast Farmers' Market with beautiful bunches of Swiss chard from the New Roots stand, and knowing I had a tub of Narragansett Creamery's Renaissance Ricotta that needed to be used, I decided this was the time to try that lasagna.

I'd bought some heirloom tomatoes to make the sauce -- and some baby leeks, which weren't part of the recipe, but I thought would make a good addition. I also decided to defrost three of my brother-in-law Dave's homemade hot Italian sausages. Meat isn't called for in the recipe either, but it was definitely part of the taste I had in mind.

I made the tomato sauce according to instructions, though I added a second big sprig of basil, because I wanted more of that flavor. I did not peel and seed the tomatoes before cooking, and while I considered pureeing them in the food mill, I just left it all in. (I don't think it makes the sauce bitter and figure it adds fiber.)

I briefly contemplated asking Dave to make homemade noodles, then I got an idea: we have a terrific local pasta maker, Terra Cotta Pasta Co. -- perhaps they make lasagna noodles. Voila, they do! And the noodles are thin and wonderful, not like those thick no-boil ones you find in the supermarket. They're frozen, so you just leave them out to defrost and layer them in the pan. What could be easier?

The dish was a real treat. (I love the earthy chard taste, but I suspect the sausage and leeks were good additions, too.) And I'm crazy about those noodles. I suspect I'll be making lasagna more often now.

Lasagna With Chard, Tomato Sauce and Ricotta

By Martha Rose Shulman, NewYorkTimes.com

This savory vegetarian lasagna is easy to put together. You can assemble it up to a day ahead of time, then bake it shortly before dinner. (My non-vegetarian version includes Italian sausage and leeks.)

Ingredients
1 generous bunch Swiss chard (about 1 1/2 pounds)
Salt
1/2 pound regular or no-boil lasagna noodles
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 pounds fresh tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced, or 1 (28-ounce) can chopped tomatoes, with juice
Pinch of sugar
1 large basil sprig
Freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup fresh ricotta cheese (I had more, so I used more, probably 1 cup all together)
1/3 to 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan (I added 1/2 cup of pecorino romano)
I also used hot Italian sausage, three links, which I removed from the skin and sauteed and three leeks which I sliced and sauteed in the sausage pan. I then added both to the tomato/chard sauce.

Instructions
1. Bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil while you prepare the chard. Fill a bowl with ice water. Tear the leaves from the stems and wash thoroughly in two changes of water. Discard the stems or set aside for another purpose.

2. When the water comes to a boil, add the Swiss chard leaves. Boil 1 minute (from the time the water comes back to a boil), until tender but still bright green, then remove from the water with a slotted spoon or skimmer and transfer to the ice water. Drain and squeeze out excess water. Chop coarsely and set aside. Cook the lasagna noodles in the same pot of water if not using no-boil lasagna noodles. Remove the pasta from the pot and toss with 1 teaspoon olive oil in a bowl.

3. In a wide, nonstick frying pan, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat and add the garlic. Cook, stirring, just until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, sugar, basil sprig, and salt (begin with 1/2 teaspoon and add more later), and bring to a simmer. Simmer, stirring often, until thick, 15 to 25 minutes, depending on the amount of juice in the pan. Taste and adjust seasonings. Remove the basil sprig. Stir in the Swiss chard and remove from the heat. (I added the Italian sausage and leeks at this point.)

4. Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Oil a square or rectangular baking dish (no bigger than 2-quart) and line the bottom with a layer of lasagna noodles. Spread half the ricotta over the noodles and half the tomato-chard sauce over the ricotta. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons Parmesan over the tomato-chard sauce. Add another layer of noodles and top with the remaining ricotta and tomato-chard sauce, and 2 tablespoons Parmesan. Finish with a layer of noodles and the remaining Parmesan. Drizzle the remaining tablespoon of olive oil over the top. Cover the dish tightly with foil. Bake 30 minutes, or until bubbling and the pasta is tender. Uncover, allow to sit for 5 minutes, and serve.

Yield: Serves 4 to 6

Advance preparation: You can blanch the chard and make the sauce up to 3 days ahead. Refrigerate in covered containers. The lasagna can be assembled a day ahead of time and refrigerated until shortly before baking.

Assunta's Beans: Mille Grazie!

I'm not sure how I developed a love affair with fresh shell beans. I'm not referring to the lima beans that were a staple in the Pennsylvania Dutch heartland where I grew up. I'm talking about cannellini, flageolet, and bortolini beans. The kind with romantic-sounding names that show up as ingredients in French and Italian cookbooks -- except you can usually only find them in their dried form here in the States. It begs the question: why go to all the trouble to dry them, when they're so marvelous cooked up fresh? I suspect the real reason is that they're very fragile -- and that so few home cooks understand how to prepare them.

The latter is a theory I get to test out every year when, as summer fades into autumn, fresh cranberry beans appear in the farmers' markets in Boston and Seacoast NH. Because their season seems so brief, I start looking out for them just before Labor Day. When I find them, as I did this weekend at the White Gate farm stand at the Seacoast Growers' Market, another customer inevitably asks me what I'm going to do with them. (In fact, it was just such an encounter that inspired this blog!) That's when I tell them about Assunta's beans.

Marcella Hazan's Italian cookbooks are a great source of recipes and stories about that cuisine. In Marcella Cucina, she talks about the delicious beans that Assunta, her husband Victor's one-time Tuscan housekeeper, used to make him. Perhaps it was the story, but I craved the opportunity to taste them for myself. So you can imagine that the first time I actually located fresh cranberry beans, it was ecstasy. I was not disappointed. Cooked at a bare simmer, with sage and garlic, in minimal water and a big splash of olive oil, they become fragrant, creamy, and flavorful. I must warn you, they'll lose that beautiful cranberry color, but they taste so good, you'll probably find yourself whispering "grazie" to Assunta -- and Marcella -- too.

Assunta's Beans
from Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan

Ingredients
1 lb unshelled fresh cranberry beans (about 2 cups shelled)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2/3 cup water
4 to 6 fresh sage leaves
3 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
Salt
Fresh ground black pepper
A good extra virgin olive oil to drizzle over the beans when serving

Instructions

1. Shell and rinse the beans.
2. Put the beans and all other ingredients in a small lidded pot. The beans should be just covered with water. Moisten a clean kitchen towel, squeezing out the excess water, and fold it to fit the pot lid. (Use one you won’t mind staining.) Cover the top of the pot with the towel and set the lid
3. Set the pot over a very low flame and cook slowly at the barest simmer. After 45 minutes, check the liquid and add a few tablespoons of water as needed. Repeat twice more in 20 minute intervals. You may have to adjust the quantity of water to match the level of heat. (The beans should never be soaking in water, but should have just enough to keep from sticking.) The beans should be done in about an hour and forty five minutes. Taste them. They should be firm but tender and the skin should have remained whole without cracking.
4. Drizzle with fresh olive oil when serving.
These are best served the moment they are done, but they can be made through the end a day in advance. Refrigerate in a tightly sealed container and reheat gently with a tablespoon or so of water.

Life is Just a Bowl of Cherry Tomato Sauce

Sometimes one needs comfort food, even in the midst of a hot, dry summer. For me, comfort food has always been pasta of some sort -- maybe because it was always my mother's welcome-home food of choice. Or maybe it's the combination of carbs and cheese. Or just maybe it's because you can sit down to a steaming bowl of pasta with butter, garlic, and parmesan within say, ten minutes or so of realizing you're starving. Whichever, I was hungry for pasta. And I wanted something more substantial than a seasonally appropriate fresh, barely cooked tomato sauce.

Luckily that day was Copley Square farmers' market day in Boston. The Atlas Farm people had a lovely selection of cherry tomatoes -- and I had a recipe I was eager to try: Nancy Harmon Jenkins' Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce, which I found courtesy of the food blog Wednesday's Chef.

Basically, you cut the cherry tomatoes in half, then top them with a mixture of dried bread crumbs, minced garlic, and parmesan and pecorino romano cheeses. I beg you, do not under any circumstance use the kind of dried breadcrumbs that come pre-packed in a tin. Make them yourself, as they provide an essential taste and texture to the dish. Once you make sure the bread crumb mixture has compeltely permeated the tomatoes, you bake them until they just start to brown on top.

Meanwile, cook some pasta. (I was lucky enough to have some fresh tomato basil spaghetti from Terra Cotta Pasta of Kittery Point, Maine in the fridge.) The only trick is to try and time the cooking of the sauce and the pasta so that both are done together. Just before serving, you toss the pasta and tomato mixture together with some torn basil leaves and enough olive oil to make a bit of a sauce, and you've got a feast that will no doubt leave you feeling very comforted, indeed.

The recipe says it serves four -- but I found it made a lovely dinner for one, with enough leftovers for a very satisfying lunch.

Pasta with Baked Tomato Sauce ala Nancy Harmon Jenkins

from Wednesday’s Chef

Serves 4

Ingredients
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil (I used about half that)
1 pound very ripe cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup plain dry breadcrumbs (Remember, no pre-packaged stuff!)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano
2 tablespoons freshly grated pecorino (or, if you don't have this, just more Parmigiano)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 pound dried penne or spaghetti
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves, torn

Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 13-by-9-inch baking dish with one-third of the oil. Place the tomatoes cut side up in the dish.

2. In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs, cheeses, and garlic and toss with a fork to mix well. Sprinkle the bread-crumb mixture over the tomatoes, making sure that each cut side is well covered with the crumb mixture. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until the tomatoes are cooked through and starting to brown on top, about 20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until al dente. Time the pasta so it finishes cooking about the time the tomatoes are ready to come out of the oven.

4. When the tomatoes are done, add the basil and stir vigorously to mix everything into a sauce. Drain the pasta and immediately transfer it to the baking dish. Add the remaining olive oil and mix well. Serve at once.

Conserva the Summer

I'm just dazzled by the array of tomatoes available now in the farmers' markets in both Portsmouth and Boston. And while this summer's heat and drought has been hard on flowers, it's been heaven for tomatoes. Even the lemon yellow heirlooms, which I too often find mushy and tasteless -- have a surprising deep flavor. I find myself calculating how many tomato-filled meals I can look forward to until the season finally ends. (You haven't lived if you haven't savored an heirloom tomato and Monterey Jack cheese quesadilla for breakfast, with warm tomato juice rolling off your chin! Today's will have leftover corn and bacon, too!)

One thing that's been very exciting is seeing the interesting selection of paste tomatoes
that New Hampshire farmers are growing. I'm talking way beyond San Marzano. At Barker's farm stand, I've seen the little Juliettes that Paul Bertolli, who has been a chef at the Bay area's Chez Panisse and Oliveto, mentions in a chapter called "Twelve Ways of Looking At Tomatoes", in his book Cooking By Hand. He suggests cutting them in half lengthwise and putting on a baking sheet filmed with olive oil, adding a little salt, then cooking them in a very slow oven (180 to 200 degrees) for five or six hours to concentrate the flavor. I'm looking forward to trying this.

However, thanks to Bertolli, one of my current tomato obsessions is Conserva, a super concentrated tomato paste made in the oven. (In Italy, it's called estratto, and there, it's the blazing hot sun that does the work, over the course of four to six days.) In my convection oven, it takes about five- and a-half hours (it can be closer to seven in a regular oven). Coincidentally, I found one of  Bertolli's favorite sauce tomatoes, Principessa Borghese, at the Meadow's Mirth stand at the Seacoast Grower's farmer's market, so last Sunday, my sister Robin and I spent the afternoon chopping, sauteing, food milling and oven drying about 6 pounds of tomatoes. Though there's surprisingly little waste -- it appears that tomatoes are nothing but cells full of flavor -- we wound up with two Ziploc bags full of concentrated tomato essence. I suspect that next winter, we'll be grateful that we conserved a little of this summer's glory.

I'm looking forward to making some sauce next weekend, using Bertolli's sauce recipe. (Basically, this is the same as the Conserva -- only you saute some onions and garlic first, until softened, add the diced tomatoes, cook until soft, put through the food mill, then put the tomatoes into a clean pot and simmer on the stove top until it's the thickness you desire.) I suspect this year, our traditional night-before Thanksgiving spaghetti supper will be something to be really thankful for.

Conserva

from Cooking by Hand by Paul Bertolli

Total time: 20 minutes, plus 7 hours cooking time

Yield: 1 1/4 cup

Ingredients

5 pounds ripe, good-quality tomatoes

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus additional for storage

1 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees. Cut the ripe tomatoes into small dice; this promotes the most rapid cooking. Warm a little olive oil in a wide skillet or casserole. add the tomatoes and salt and bring to a rapid boil. Cook for about 2 minutes, or until tomatoes are very soft. Immediately pass them through the finest plate of a food mill, pushing as much of the pulp through the sieve as you can. The puree should be devoid of seeds. (Note: I did this in two batches.)

2. Lightly oil a baking sheet with olive oil. Spread the tomatoes in the pan in an even layer and place in the oven. If using a convection oven, cook for three hours. If not, cook for 5 hours until the water has evaporated from the paste. Use a spatula to turn the paste over on itself periodically as water evaporates and you notice the surface darken. Reduce the heat to 250 degrees and continue to evaporate the paste for about 21/2 to 3 hours, or until it is thick, shiny and brick-colored.

Tomato Conserva holds for a long time stored in glass canning jars and topped with one-half inch of olive oil. As you use it, maintain this level of olive oil on top. Store the Conserva in the refrigerator. Or put it in a large

Ziploc freezer bag, flatten, remove air, and freeze, breaking off pieces when needed.

Mad About Zucchini Carpaccio

It wasn't exactly Mad Men -- but advertising in the early '80's had it's own level of pathos, humor, and craziness. I remember long lunches seated in the leather banquettes at Ciro & Sal's on Boylston Street in Boston, with Caesar salad, veal Milanese, and copious amounts of Soave. It was there that I discovered carpaccio: raw beef, sliced impossibly thin, then drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice and topped with capers and shaved Parmesan. There are restaurants that disappear without a whimper and places you mourn long after they've gone. For me, Ciro & Sal's is one of the latter. However, thanks to The Cafe Cookbook: Italian Recipes from London's River Cafe by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, I've found a new way of indulging my craving for carpaccio: with zucchini.

With their emphasis on fresh ingredients and authentic regional Italian recipes, Grey, who passed away this year, and Rogers helped to transform British cooking. (They also gave Jamie Oliver his start.) Their books can be hard to find, but are definitely worth any trouble you have to go to. This recipe is really more of a salad  -- and there are no capers -- but the lemon/olive oil dressing and the Parmesan shavings come close to approximating the flavors that I long for, even as I feel a tinge of righteousness at eating organic zucchini rather than raw beef.

I found the perfect small zucchini at the Atlas Farm stand at the Copley Square Market in Boston. The secret is to slice the zucchini as close to paper thin as possible. You could use a mandolin, but I don't think that's really necessary; I just use a good sharp knife. Once you slice the zucchini, you marinate it for five minutes or so in the dressing -- then it's ready to be plated with some arugula, topped with Parmesan and served. It couldn't be easier. Or more delicious. It's even good for you.

Zucchini Carpaccio

from Cafe Cookbook: Italian Recipes from London's River Cafe

by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers

For 6 -- use only small, young zucchini for this salad

Ingredients

2 pounds young yellow and green zucchini
1 bunch arugula
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
6-ounce piece Parmesan, slivered

Instructions
1. Trim the ends off the zucchini and slice at an angle into thin rounds.
2. Pick through the arugula, discarding any yellow leaves. Snap off the stalks, then wash and dry the leaves thoroughly.
3. Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper, and pour over the zucchini. Mix, then leave to marinade for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Divide the arugula between the serving plates. Put the zucchini on top and then add the Parmesan slivers. Add a small amount of freshly ground pepper, and serve.

Reinventing String Beans and Ham

It all started with the ham steak that my brother-in-law Dave bought from Tim Rocha at Kellie Brook Farm in Greenland, NH last Friday. Usually we only have ham twice a year. Once in the fall, using a recipe based on my mother's Pennsylvania Dutch braised string beans and ham. And again at our Christmas party when I bake a whole ham with an orange marmalade glaze. Never mind tradition--Dave had a hankering for ham steak, cooked on the grill. I kiddingly said, "Well, maybe we should make string beans and potatoes to go with it." "Why not?" Dave joked back.

Why not indeed? After all, right now, string beans at their peak of flavor  -- as opposed to the tough, old ones I look for when I'm going to braise them toward season's end. And tiny new potatoes are just coming in -- and at their most delicate. Just for fun, I started looking through a few cookbooks. It wasn't long before I found something I was dying to try in the Fields of Greens cookbook.

Greens is one of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco. In fact, I think they were one of the first restaurants to elevate vegetarian cooking to the level of fine cuisine. In this particular recipe, the green beans are blanched and the potatoes are first roasted, then grilled, which gives them a deep, earthy taste. (If you don't have a grill, you can just use the roasted potatoes.) You mix the beans and potatoes together with cherry tomatoes and a blender salad dressing that combines champagne wine vinegar, chopped garlic, fresh basil, and olive oil. The salad looks beautiful and tastes even better.

Dave grilled his ham steak with some mustard and balsamic vinegar, and grilled some fresh peaches that we'd bought that day from Susan McGeough at White Gate Farm in Epping, NH, to put on the side. And there it was: ham and string bean perfection on a warm, mid-summer evening. I'm sure we'll be having it again. And I think I'm going to be looking through this and my other Greens cookbooks for more summer vegetable recipe ideas.

Grilled New Potato Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Summer Beans, and Basil
from Fields of Greens, New Vegetarian Recipes from the Celebrated Greens Restaurant

Ingredients
2 pounds new potatoes
Light olive oil
Salt and pepper
1/4 pound fresh summer beans: green, yellow wax, green or yellow Romano
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes, sweet 100s or pears
1 handful frisée or salad greens (optional)
Basil-Garlic Vinaigrette (recipe follows)
Champagne vinegar
12 Niçoise or Gaeta olives (I didn't use these -- my Pennsylvania Dutch heritage rebelled at the though of olives wth ham and strong beans -- but I'm sure it would be a delicious addition)

Instructions
1. Prepare the grill, if using.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the potatoes in a baking dish with a little olive oil and sprinkle with a few pinches of salt and pepper. Cover and roast until tender, about 35 to 40 minutes. (Keep checking if you're using tiny new potatoes like we did.) Set aside to cool. Cut the potatoes in half or quarters if large, then slide them onto skewers for grilling. If the grill grates are close together, skewers won't be necessary. (We left the tiny potatoes whole and used a grill basket.)
3. While the potatoes are roasting, remove the stem ends from the beans and cut in half diagonally or leave whole if they are small. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Drop beans in the water and cook until just tender, about 3 to 4 minutes, depending on their size. Rinse under cold water and set aside to drain. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half or leave whole if small. Wash the salad greens if using, and dry them in a spinner. Make the vinaigrette.
4. Place the potatoes on the grill, cut side down and grill until they're golden, crisp, and grill marks appear. Slide the grilled potatoes from the skewers and toss with the beans, cherry tomatoes, and vinaigrette. Adjust the seasoning, if needed, with a splash of Champagne vinegar and salt and pepper. Loosely arrange the greens on a platter, spoon the vegetables over, and garnish with the olives (if using).

Serves four

Basil-Garlic Vinaigrette
Ingredients
2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped

Instructions
Combine everything in a blender and blend until smooth.
Makes about 1/2 cup