Something a little more straightforward: Blood orange grain salad.

I'll come out and say it in explicit terms: I hate winter. I hate being cold, I hate that the MTA freaks right the hell out the second there is a drop of precipitation, I hate hat hair, I hate that I appear to return to my primordial reptile roots (or, at least, my skin does) as soon as the central heating gets turned on. Hate.

I love, however, Winter citrus. And while it is not an acceptable substitute for Spring, this California dreamer accepts that sometimes, it is as good as it gets. And, frankly, one could do a lot worse than this seasonal bounty--Tangerines! Meyer lemons! Blood oranges! Little puffs of sunshine in an otherwise bleak and depressing season!

I took my first real stand against Winter this past weekend, when I got my hands on some blood oranges. I had gotten it into my head to make something involving tempeh (pulled pork had been on the previous night's menu, and I was feeling a need to be a bit more virtuous), but wanted to veer away from my traditional Mirin-soy glaze; I wanted something comforting, something almost autumnal, but still bright and brisk. Sort of the culinary equivalent of walking in the deep woods on a crisp but sunny day. So, I snagged some radiant, bloody beauties, some sprouts and some squash, and decided to see what sort of random alchemy I could muster in my kitchen.



I ended up making a warm grain salad with a blood-orange, maple syrup and white balsamic glaze; it worked beautifully upon serving, the dressing's sweetness offset perfectly offset by the delightful tang of some soft, creamy goat's cheese. I will fully admit, however, that it lost a little something when consumed as the next day's lunch--the goat's cheese is vital to the dish really achieving on a flavor level (it really wakes up the citrus), and I didn't pack any. I hope to remedy that next time I make this--I would really like the dressing to stand on its own. My suspicion is that this can be fixed by changing up the acid; I will probably use a dark balsamic next time, as opposed to a fig-infused white balsamic, possibly mixed with a little bit of cider vinegar for kick. A bit of lemon juice might not go terribly amiss, either.

Don't let my conjectures put you off this recipe, however--for an experiment, I was happy with it--its soft, complex sweetness sated the cravings my body was experiencing for something warm and comforting, and it cheered me up immeasurably with its sunny charm. I hope it will do the same for you!

Recipe has been adjusted to reflect my musings.

Blood orange tempeh and kamut salad

DRESSING:
1/2 c maple syrup
Juice of 3 blood oranges
1/3 c olive oil
1/2 c balsamic vinegar (at this point, i'd recommend avoiding anything fruit-infused or of the white balsamic variety)
salt
1 tbsp fresh thyme

1 packet tempeh

1 butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/8" cubes
2-3 red onions, peeled and cut into eighths
8 oz brussels sprouts, outer leaves removed, quartered
1/4 c dried cranberries

1c kamut
3c water

1. Preheat your oven to 350;make the dressing: combine maple syrup, orange juice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt.
2. Place squash, onion, and sprouts in a roasting dish. Add 1/3 dressing. Cover with foil and roast for 30min. Remove the foil after 30 min, then continue to roast until squash is nice and soft
3. Prepare the kamut as per packet directions (typically 3 parts liquid to 1 part grain).
4. Cut tempeh into 1" cubes. In a skillet, heat some olive oil and fry the tempeh over medium-high heat until golden brown. Reduce the heat and add 1/3 dressing, stirring until the liquid is nice and syrupy.
   
5. Add thyme to final 1/3 of dressing
6. Combine tempeh, vegetables, kamut, and cranberries in a large bowl with remaining 1/3 dressing. Toss well.
7. Serve with a garnish of goat's cheese!

giant duck salad

When Matt and I went to France last fall, we rented a tiny apartment in Montmartre for the week so we could pretend to be locals. Montmartre seems like the Carroll Gardens of Paris: the place where regular folks can actually afford to live, and though it's not quite in the center of things, there are cheese stores and nicer apartments and perfect neighborhood restaurants to brag about. Each day we took the subway to the more central parts of the city to see museums and markets, and while we enjoyed some fancy meals there, our favorite dinner was in a casual place a few blocks from the apartment.

It was at Le Relais Gascon that I had my first French Cassoulet. It was eye-rollingly delicious with creamy beans and meltingly rich meats. But sharing the spotlight was the salad of my dreams. These are serious salads—the menu warns that they are "Salades Géantes". I think we laughed out loud when it arrived in its hulking bowl. Each salad is topped with a mountain of freshly fried, fragrantly garlicy potato slices. Inside, lardons and warm goat cheese, crisp greens and perfect vinagrette. You could order it with tomatoes and green beans, foie gras or sausage, ham, smoked salmon, duck, etc, etc. I've been trying to recreate it ever since.


A trip to Essex market provided the excuse. I picked up three beautiful bits of cheese at Formaggio, and while we could make a whole meal out of that unbelievable cheese, a salad would serve as a good foil. I chose a loaf of bread and some bitter frisée, some cheap red peppers and endive. I added some potatoes for the essential salad topping. To gild the lily, my new best friend Jeffrey the Butcher sold me the duck.

I probably should have sprung for the breast. The magret duck breasts were huge, more expensive than Shiv's entire Long Island duckling. I chickened out (ducked out?), saving my money for our fancy cheese plate, and just chose a leg. I think I've learned tonight that duck legs are good for braising, and for making confit, but really nothing special roasted. Nothing special, except for one thing—the fat. One duck leg provided the perfect amount of amazing, fragrant, musky fat to crisp up our potato slice topping. Divine. But when I try this again, it won't be with the leg.


Not much meat is needed for this recipe, especially if you're serving it with a cheese plate. But go with your own appetite. And feel free to riff on the vegetables—kirby cucumbers are a good addition, or tomatoes if they're in season. Corn cut off the cob would be great. I experimented with a vinaigrette with red wine vinegar, a touch of soft goat cheese, and a few blackberries, but your favorite simple vinagrette may work better.


Giant Duck Salad
Inspired by Le Relais Gascon

1 teaspoon Five Spice Powder
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 dried chipotle
1 duck leg (or try a breast, cooking time will vary)
2-3 medium waxy potatoes
1 head frisee and 2 heads endive (or substitute greens of your liking)
vegetables for salad: red peppers, cucumber, etc, sliced
vinaigrette (your favorite recipe)

1-2 hours before cooking, break chipotle in to three pieces or so in a small bowl. Pour a half cup of warm (not boiling) water over, let sit five minutes. Rub duck leg with Five Spice and garlic. Place in a sealable plastic bag, add orange juice, soy sauce, balsamic, and honey. Add chipotle with its soaking liquid, seal bag and shake a bit to mix ingredients and distribute the marinade. Marinate an hour or two, turning to coat the duck leg if you remember. Preheat oven to 350. Remove leg from marinade, let excess drip off. Heat an ovenproof skillet (I used cast iron) to low-medium heat, and place leg, skin side down, in it. No grease is needed since the duck will give off fat. Let brown for 10 minutes, then turn and cook five minutes more. Meanwhile, slice potatoes about 1/8" thick, leaving skin on. Add potatoes to pan when browning is complete, turn duck leg skin side down, move skillet to oven. Cook 40 minutes, flip potatoes and turn duck, then cook another 40 minutes or until duck is cooked. Meanwhile place salad and salad vegetables in a bowl, and make the vinagrette. When duck is cooked, let rest a minute. Remove skin and cut meat from the bone into small pieces. Add to salad and toss with vinagrette. Place crispy potatoes on top and serve.



In other P&C news...
Thanks to the magic of Craigslist, I have acquired a digital SLR of my very own! Perfect to celebrate the hundredth post of Pithy and Cleaver (and the recent birth of my baby neice!) Please bear with me as I learn how to use it.

If You Can't Have an Island Vacation, Have an Island Salad

Anyone else need a vacation to recover from their vacation?

If you're not quite ready to face work yet, maybe you and I should take off for somewhere sunny. Aruba, anyone? Maybe the Dominican Republic?

In college, my a cappella singing group was hired to perform for a week at a Club Med in the D.R. I had never been to a tropical resort before, and pushed the group to do something more adventurous/cultural with our January break. Of course, I was wrong, and singing for our all-you-can-eat suppers (and a flipbook's worth of pina coladas) was the perfect way to spend a winter week after exams. It was heavenly, in the way that only long days on the beach with great friends, trashy novels, and unhealthy beverages can be.

If you can't make it there, maybe this salad will help ease the pain.


My mom saved the recipe from an old Gourmet magazine, and though it's a little dated, it's kind of fun. She added some toasted cashews, and subbed romaine for the cabbage. The touch of curry powder makes the dressing bold and warm, if not exactly tropical.

Pina coladas may not be part of your New Year's resolutions, but if you have one, I won't tell...


Island Pork Tenderloin Salad
from Gourmet (May 2003)

For pork
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 pork tenderloins (2 1/4 to 2 1/2 pounds total) See note below.
2 tablespoons olive oil

For glaze
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon Tabasco

For vinaigrette
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup olive oil

For salad
3 navel oranges
5 ounces baby spinach, trimmed (6 cups leaves)
4 cups romaine lettuce
1 red bell pepper, cut lengthwise into thin strips
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup cashews, toasted
2 ripe California avocados

Prepare pork:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir together salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, and cinnamon, then coat pork with spice rub.Heat oil in an ovenproof 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until just beginning to smoke, then brown pork, turning, about 4 minutes total. Leave pork in skillet.

Make glaze and roast pork:
Stir together brown sugar, garlic, and Tabasco and pat onto top of each tenderloin. Roast in middle of oven until thermometer inserted diagonally in center of each tenderloin registers 140°F, about 20 minutes. Let pork stand in skillet at room temperature 10 minutes. (Temperature will rise to about 155°F while standing.)

Make vinaigrette while pork roasts:
Whisk together juices, mustard, curry powder, salt, and pepper, then add oil in a stream, whisking until emulsified.

Prepare salad ingredients while pork stands:
Cut peel, including white pith, from oranges with a sharp knife, then cut oranges crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Toss spinach, cabbage, bell pepper, cashews and raisins in a large bowl with about 1/4 cup vinaigrette. Halve, pit, and peel avocados, then cut diagonally into 1/4-inch-thick slices.

Assemble salad:
Cut pork at a 45-degree angle into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Line a large platter with dressed salad and arrange sliced pork, oranges, and avocados in rows on top. Drizzle some vinaigrette over avocados and oranges. Pour any juices from skillet over pork.

NOTE: Be careful to buy pork tenderloins that don't have too much saline injected in them. My mom likes the ones from Trader Joe's, and there are probably others, but many supermarket brands are quite waterlogged. Then be careful not to overcook.

Give beets a chance: Simple beet salad.

In Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume, all the characters are (in one way or another) having a love affair with the beet. Most of them don't even realize it; they haven't fallen for the humble vegetable's more obvious charms--the silken flesh, the exquisitely agonizing color, the sweet and earthy taste. Instead, they are unwittingly under the spell of the beet's lesser-used and extremely fragrant pollen, which is apparently the great secret of everlasting life.

Much as I'd love to live forever, I think I'll leave the pollen for the characters and stick with the beet itself. Not only do I find myself drawn to the nearly obscene red finery, but i'm a little in love with the names of the different varietals: Burpee's Golden! Will's Improved Blood Turnip! Albina Veradura! Beta Vulgaris! Don't they just sound like a cross between your crazy aunt and her man-eating tentacula plant?



With visions of that strange mental picture dancing in my head, I set about making a simple beet salad for Sunday's supper. Seriously, seriously simple. Three ingredients simple. And perfect for a transitional fall night--tangy, creamy, velvety...and guaranteed to stain anything it comes into contact with, so really and truly: try to have some latex gloves on hand while handling these things. Unless Lizzie Borden is your new fashion statement, that is.

Bingo Pajama would approve.



Seriously simple beet salad

4-5 medium sized beets (about the size of your fist)
Goat's cheese (a nice creamy chevre, ideally. I used what was leftover from the figs)
Balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees; wrap your beets firmly and individually in foil. When the oven hits temperature, pop in the beets and roast them for about 45 minutes, or until soft. DO NOT peel them first. Doing so will deprive you of the fun part.
2. When the beets are done, let them cool until they can be handled comfortably. Snap on your latex gloves and rub the skins off. It will look gory. I am not kidding about the gloves.
3. When peeled, cut them into 1-inch chunks (or so), swish them around with some balsamic vinegar (according to your personal taste). Some salt and pepper, too, if you're so inclined. Then, crumble the goat's cheese on top and you're in business!
   

I know beets aren't everyone's cup of tea, but i do encourage you all to try this, at least once.

hitting summer's snooze button

One last plate piled with tomatoes, a few more leaves from our balcony basil plant...Before it turns to October, to baked squash and roasted cauliflower—nothing against roasted cauliflower, seriously, I love the stuff—one more night of tomatoes. They were luscious with a few slices of fresh mozzarella, coarse ground pepper, good olive oil, and a splash of balsamic.

I also served up the last of this summer's sweet corn chowder. You could still make this—there's still corn at the farmer's market. Or file for next August. I adapted the recipe from Leite's Culinaria for a dinner party and froze the leftovers.


I used turkey bacon because some of our guests don't eat pork, but I'm sure bacon or guincale would be fabulous. I didn't have enough chicken stock to double the recipe, so I also made a quick corncob stock by boiling the cobs in water for about ten minutes. I used local Ronnybrook 2% milk, though cream would be good. Finally—and this is important—I did not cook the corn kernels with the potatoes. Good sweet corn needs almost no cooking. I added half the raw kernels to the potato mixture, letting them sit a minute with the burner off before whizzing them up with my immersion blender, then added the rest of the corn. The soup is quite sweet, and delicious with a salad of bitter lettuces if you've had enough of tomatoes by this point. I don't blame you. But just think how you'll feel in December...