Relish the Radish

Photos by Lynn Schweikart  © 2016

I used to think there was no better way to savor a radish than on a fresh baguette slathered with French butter. Even better if eaten "sur un pique-nique", in a Parisian park. Then I found this recipe for a radish salad -- so simple to prepare, yet so delicious! The past few weeks, the Wake Robin Farm stand at the Portsmouth Farmers' Market has been tempting me with bunches of jewel-like radishes.  So it was an "occasion fortuntate" to enjoy this recipe again. 

I had come across it in a July 2003 New York Time article by Mark Bittman (Mark, I miss you, please, enough with this "entrepreneurial" detour -- come back to writing your Minimalist food columns!) I liked the combination of fruit juices, piquant chili pepper, and herbs. I liked how easy it was to prepare. Most of all, I liked how it took radishes from the supporting role they play in most salads, and gave them the starring role! 

The salad takes about 20 minutes to prepare, but for 15 of those minutes, you do nothing while the radishes take a salt-water bath!

RADISH SALAD ala Mark Bittman (Serves 4)




Ingredients

About 12 radishes, thinly sliced  (Bittman recommends using mandolin, but I just used a sharp knife.) 

1 tablespoon salt (I used kosher)

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon orange juice

Ground Urfa pepper or other mild chilies to taste (Bittman says this is optional, but I love the rich, smoky taste of Urfa, with its hint of heat. I also think its deep maroon color adds a nice visual interest.)

2 tablespoons chopped mint or cilantro.  (I used a combination of both -- why not?)

Instructions

1. Combine radishes with salt, and cover with water in a bowl. Let sit 15 minutes. Drain, and rinse.

2. Meanwhile, stir together the pepper and fruit juices.

3. Toss radishes with dressing and chilies. Taste. Add more salt, pepper or lime juice as needed.

4. Garnish with the herbs, and serve.

Soup's On: Bean Soup That's Fast, Easy, and Delicious

(NOTE: Savoring the Seasons is this week's From a Local Kitchen on the Seacoast Eat Local blog! Thanks, Debra!)

I felt like I was losing a friend when Mark Bittman's last Minimalist column appeared in The New York Times on January 25th. For thirteen years, I'd looked forward to reading it every Wednesday. I learned countless tips for making delicious meals with a minimum of fuss. In particular, I enjoyed being inspired by what I like to call the Bittman 101s, an ongoing series of 101 ideas for simple salads, picnics, appetizers, etc.  that could be made in 20 minutes or less.

However, if the first few weeks of Bittman's new endeavor, Eat, in the The New York Times Sunday Magazine are any indication, I needn't have fretted. (Yes, there is a paywall now, but you are allowed 20 free articles a month  -- or you can just order the Sunday Times.)

Right out of the box, there was a column that blew me away. Called Creamy, Brothy, Earthy, Hearty,  it was essentially a guide to making easy, yet delicious vegetable-based soups, most of which can go from stove to table in under an hour. This includes making your own vegetable stock!

We'd recently bought some dried peregion beans from Baer's Best Beans at the Seacoast Eat Local Winter Farmers' Market. (There are two remaining: April 9th and 23rd at Exeter High School) So I was eager to try the bean soup recipe. As this was a spur of the moment thing, there was no time for overnight bean soaking.  However, I've found that as long as your dried beans aren't too old, this step is unnecessary. It's a great reason to buy dried beans from the farmers' market as opposed to the grocery store. (Not salting beans during cooking is another old wives' tale you can ignore. It doesn't make them tough; in fact, it makes them delicious!)

In less than an hour, we were having a hearty, homemade soup for lunch. Bittman's column featured four different categories of soup; twelve soups in all. I can't wait to sample each one--and then be inspired to create my own!

Earthy Bean Soup ala Mark Bittman

Put 1 1/2 cup dried beans, 1 chopped onion, 2 chopped carrots, 2 chopped celery ribs, 2 bay leaves, 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves and 6 cups water in a pot over high heat.

Boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer until the beans are soft, at least 1 hour, adding more water if necessary. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish: A drizzle of olive oil.

NOTE: We began by sauteing the onion, carrots, and celery before adding them to the beans; then when the beans were almost tender, added some leftover chopped Kellie Brooks Farm ham that we had on hand in the freezer.

Corn Off the Cob

As a kid, I wasn't big on vegetables, except for corn. (When I was about eight or so, I had a favorite dish: I cut a broiled steak into bite-size pieces, mixed it with some corn -- the Green Giant Niblets variety-- and  voila! Corn Beef! ) But it was corn on the cob that I loved best of all. My father's passion was gardening. Vegetables and fruit trees, mostly. Corn especially. Starting in mid-July, about every other day, we'd put a big pot of water on the stove and go out in the garden and pick that evening's corn. By the time the water was boiling, the ears were shucked and ready to cook. It didn't matter how often we had it; I never got
tired of it.

Today, I think corn on the cob is still my favorite summer vegetable. But now, I also like to find interesting ways to make it off the cob. Last fall, I was searching through some of Mark Bittman's old Minimalist columns in the online version of The New York Times. His recipe for Sauteed Corn and Tomato Salad caught my eye, but it was too late in the year for the best corn and tomatoes. So I filed it away for another year. Fortunately, I found it again recently, just in time to enjoy it with this season's crop.

There's a whole lot of  flavor going on in this delicious dish. The corn gets sauteed until its almost brown, so it has a nice, semi-caramelized taste. There's a little bit of bacon to give it a smoky depth, some lime juice, which combines with the bacon for a tangy vinaigrette, and avocado that adds a cooling texture. There are even some Thai bird chilies to provide a little heat.

Sauteed Corn and Tomato salad makes a great side for just about any meal. If you have any leftover, put it between some corn tortillas with a little cheese and you have yourself a mighty fine quesadilla.

Pan-Roasted Corn and Tomato Salad
Mark Bittman, The New York Times
August 19th, 2009
Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
1/4 pound bacon, chopped (I used some of my brother-in-law's home-cured bacon, but any tasty slab bacon should do.)
1 small red onion, chopped
4 to 6 ears corn, stripped of their kernels (2 to 3 cups)
Juice of 1 lime, or more to taste
2 cups cored and chopped tomatoes
1 medium ripe avocado, pitted, peeled and chopped
2 fresh small chilies, like Thai, seeded and minced
Salt and black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, more or less.

Instructions
1. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat until it begins to render fat; add onion and cook until just softened, about 5 minutes, then add corn. Continue cooking, stirring or shaking pan occasionally, until corn begins to brown a bit, about 5 more minutes; remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. Drain fat if you wish.
2. Put lime juice in a large bowl and add bacon-corn mixture; then toss with remaining ingredients. Taste, adjust the seasoning and serve warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 4 servings.

Get Your Goat

My cousin Christy was coming for a visit last weekend, and Robin, Dave, and I wanted to make her a special dinner as an early birthday celebration. She requested a tagine made with either veal or lamb, as she knew we have access to local meat that's humanely raised. We had recently purchased some goat kabob meat from Riverslea Farm in Epping at the Portsmouth Farmers' market, so we asked Christy if she would mind having her birthday tagine made with goat instead. Happily, she agreed.

Some people are skeptical about goat meat, fearing it will be tough and taste strong and, well, "goaty". We've found the goat meat we've bought at the Farmers' Market to be tender and delicious. Usually we have chops, so we were eager to cook with the kabob meat. We were also excited to try our new, bright red Le Creuset Moroccan Tagine. It's basically a shallow enameled dish with a tight-fitting conical lid, which keeps everything moist during the long simmer that makes a tagine so delicious.

Dave looked through a pile of cookbooks before deciding to adapt David Tanis' recipe for chicken tagine with pumpkin and chickpeas for the goat -- and for spring. Tanis, who spends half the year as chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and the other half living in Paris, had suggested that tomatoes could be substituted for the pumpkin. As we happened to have a can of chopped tomatoes in the pantry, we were all set.

The spices in both the goat and the chickpeas are fragrant and heavenly. Dave substituted his favorite maras pepper for the freshly ground black pepper called for in the recipe. It's bright red, with a deep flavor -- there's some heat, but it's not overwhelming. Long before we ate, the smells coming from the kitchen were exotic and inviting. And when we finally sat down, we had a meal worth celebrating.

Goat Tagine with Tomatoes and Chickpeas

Based on the recipe for chicken tagine with pumpkin and chickpeas in A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes by David Tanis

Serves 6

Ingredients

FOR THE CHICKPEAS

1 lb. (2 cups) dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans) , picked over and soaked overnight in cold water (I used the quick-soak method from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, a great basic cookbook: put the chickpeas in a pan, cover with cold water to cover, boil for two minutes, then soak for 2 hours in the cooking water, drain, then cook in fresh water per your recipe.)

1 large onion, quartered
1 cinnamon stick
A few cloves
Extra virgin olive oil
Coarse salt
Butter
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Minced parsley

FOR THE TAGINE
1 medium can of chopped tomatoes
Coarse salt
2 teaspoons maras pepper
3 pounds of goat meat cut for kebabs
3-inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, lightly toasted and roughly ground
2 large onions, diced small
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoons butter
6 garlic cloves, sliced
Large pinch of saffron
Red pepper flakes or cayenne

Harissa Oil (see recipe below)

Instructions
FOR THE CHICKPEAS
1. To cook the chickpeas (or garbanzo):, drain the soaked chickpeas, put them in a saucepan, and cover with 3 quarts of water. Add the onion, cinnamon stick, cloves, a splash of olive oil, and a little salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently uncovered, for about an hour, or until the chickpeas are tender. Taste for salt
and adjust. Leave the chickpeas to cool in the cooking liquid.

FOR THE TAGINE
1. Season the goat meat with a little salt, the cumin seeds, grated ginger, and the maras pepper. (If you don't have maras, use freshly ground regular pepper.) Set the meat aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
3. In a skillet over medium heat, saute the onions in a combination of butter and olive oil until softened. Season with salt and continue cooking until the onions are lightly golden, about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and add the sliced garlic cloves. Crumble the saffron over the onions. Stir the onions and season to taste with red pepper.
4. Arrange the onions in a tagine or shallow earthenware casserole (or two if necessary), and then top with the tomatoes and their juices. Now, put the goat over the tomatoes in one layer. Add 1/2 cup of chickpea cooking liquid or enough to barely cover the meat.
5. Cover the casserole and bake for 20 minutes or so, until the liquid is bubbling briskly. Reduce the
heat to 375 degrees and continue cooking for another 30 minutes, or so until the goat is tender and yields
easily to a probing fork. Take the casserole from the oven and skim any surfacing fat with a shallow ladle.
6. Warm the chickpeas in their cooking liquid, then drain and deposit them in a warmed bowl. Swirl in a little butter, the cinnamon, and some chopped parsley.
7. Give each diner a serving of goat with some tomatoes and a good ladle of broth, Spoon some chickpeas over each serving. Pass a bowl of the spicy harissa oil for drizzling

HARISSA OIL
Ingredients
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 tablespoon sweet paprika or mild ground red chile
1 teaspoon Aleppo, cayenne, or other powdered hot red chile
1 to 2 garlic cloves, smashed to a paste with a little salt
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup olive oil
A few drops of red wine vinegar

Directions
1. Toast all the seeds in a dry pan over medium heat until they are fragrant. Grind the toasted seeds in
a mortar or spice mill, then put them in a bowl.
2. Add the paprika, red pepper, garlic, and salt. Stir in the olive oil and vinegar. The harissa will keep in
the fridge for up to a week.
Makes about 1 cup.