Further Adventures in Pantry-Clearing

Last night’s dinner put an additional dent in my reserve of olive oil (currently five different kinds), tahini, and herbs, and completely used up the basmati rice. It also made excellent use of Sunday morning’s farmers market haul.

Pattypan squash, white eggplant and long peppers were tossed with olive oil, garlic paste, salt and herbs and roasted at high heat until caramelized outside and tender inside. The roasted vegetables were served on a bed of buttered rice and topped with a cool and lemony sauce of yogurt and tahini, which I’d previously modified from one of my legitimately Greek cookbooks. If you preferred to use this as a side dish, you could forego the rice or other starch and toss the vegetables lightly with the sauce instead.

I must give His Lordship credit for the roasted vegetables, since he did all the prep work and came up with the marinade. His mad knife skills are greatly to be envied, and his creativity is boundless and seldom disappoints.

Roasted Vegetables with Tahini-Yogurt Sauce
Serves 4-6 as main course over rice, more as a side dish

Vegetables:
4 small eggplant, in 1/2-inch dice
1 lb summer squash, in 1/2-inch dice
1/2 lb of mild long peppers, in 1/2-inch slices
5 cloves garlic
1/4-1/3 cup regular olive oil (not extra-virgin)
1 teaspoon mixed dried herbs (Penzeys Parisien Blend)
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and pepper

Sauce:
1/2 cup yogurt, preferably Greek
1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, preferably infused with lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic
Half a dozen stiff shakes of Tabasco or other hot sauce
Salt and pepper
Sufficient hot water to dilute as necessary

Buttered basmati rice or egg noodles, if desired
Thinly sliced green onions for garnish

Position the oven racks in the middle and lowest position, and preheat oven to 450 F. Line two baking sheets with foil or parchment.

Place the cubed eggplant in one large bowl, and the summer squash and peppers in a separate bowl.

Mince the 5 cloves of garlic until fine, then sprinkle with salt and smash under the flat side of the knife until a smooth paste forms. In a small bowl, combine the garlic paste, olive oil, herbs, paprika, salt and pepper. Pour half the marinade into each bowl of vegetables, and toss until everything is evenly coated.

Spread the eggplant in a single layer on one sheet and the squash and peppers on the second, and place each sheet on a separate rack in the oven. Roast until vegetables are caramelized and tender, approximately 20-30 minutes, stirring the vegetables and rotating their pans once during baking.

While the vegetables are roasting, repeat the smashing process with the final clove of garlic for the sauce. Add the paste to a large glass measuring cup, and whisk together with all the sauce ingredients except the water until well combined. Taste and correct seasonings as necessary, then stir in enough hot water to dilute to the consistency of heavy cream. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Serve the roasted vegetables over buttered rice or noodles, drizzled with several spoonfuls of the yogurt sauce and sprinkled with the green onions.

Notes:

It’s preferable to use ordinary olive oil rather than extra virgin for the roasted vegetables, since extra-virgin will lose its flavor under the high heat anyway. For the sauce, which is uncooked, a good extra-virgin is best, and if you have lemon-infused, by all means use it.

Since we have Penzeys Parisien herb blend, that’s what we used. You could make your own blend of chives, dill, basil, tarragon and chervil, or any combination of dried herbs you prefer. If I’d had some, minced fresh parsley would have been an excellent addition to the finished dish, for both flavor and color.

The sauce will get increasingly garlicky the longer it sits, so if you want it really strong, prepare it well ahead. Conversely, if you’re garlic-averse (hey, it takes all kinds), cut the garlic to half a clove and make it just before serving.

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Naked Pizza

After half a lifetime spent piling as much onto a pizza as the laws of physics will permit, I have finally come to the conclusion that the Italians have it right after all, and that the ridiculous excess of American pizza is really an insult to the basic form. Pizza, in order to be any good at all, needs to be as minimalist as possible, so that you can taste the mellow yeastiness of the crust, the peppery fruitiness of the oil, the mineral tang of the salt, and the individual characteristics of the very few and elemental toppings you do choose to add. Tons of cheese only dull your palate, sweet and pasty tomato sauces only make the whole experience insipid, and too many toppings not only clash and drown each other out, but also weigh down and wet the dough so much that you will never get a properly crisp crust.

There are therefore two secrets to really spectacular and satisfying pizza: Keep It Simple, Stupid, and do not even bother if you’re not going to use a baking stone. I know it seems like the height of yuppified self-indulgence to buy a baking stone, but you absolutely need the porous ceramic texture to wick away the extra moisture and sear the crust to a crackly, caramelized golden-brown. A mediocre batch of dough can be saved by baking on a ripping-hot stone, but even the most perfectly kneaded and risen dough will become a spongy, disappointing mess if you bake it on a regular cookie sheet. There’s no point in going to all the trouble (and potential heartache) of working with yeast if you’re going to handicap yourself from the start, so you really owe it to yourself to spring the $20 at Williams Sonoma or Bloodbath and Beyond, or even the $3 at Home Despot for unglazed quarry tiles instead (Thanks, Alton Brown!) .

As you can see above, dinner tonight featured my absolute favorite pizza: a white pizza with nothing but olive oil, salt, and thinly sliced onions and garlic. The oil keeps the dough moist and rich, and the onions and garlic turn sweet and wonderful in the high heat, needing only a sprinkle of salt to round everything out. While I do make the dough from scratch on occasion (and, in a particularly industrious phase, even kept a sourdough starter going for months at a time, from which I made weekly batches of baguettes or focaccia), lately I’ve had neither the time nor the energy to make my own, so I procure the dough from the neighborhood pizzerias or from the refrigerator case at Trader Joe’s. If you have the time and inclination, I highly recommend Alton’s recipe, which, if not fast, is practically foolproof and incredibly flavorful.

Pizza Bianca with Red Onion and Garlic
Makes 2 oblong pizzas, approximately 12 inches by 6 inches

1/2 lb pizza dough, purchased from your friendly neighborhood pizzeria
1 large red onion, thinly sliced
6 cloves garlic, thinly slices
1/4 cup good olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Equipment:
A baking stone or unglazed quarry tiles
A pizza peel or cookie sheet (turned upside-down if it has a rim), for transferring the pizzas to and from the oven
Coarsely ground cornmeal for dusting the peel or cookie sheet

Move the oven rack to lower third of the oven and position the baking stone on the rack. Preheat the oven at 550 F for at least 20 minutes, to allow the stone to get really hot.

Meanwhile, mix the topping ingredients in a bowl and allow to marinate. Divide the dough into two equal portions and shape into balls, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rest until the oven is ready.

When the oven and the stone are blistering hot, sprinkle the peel or upside-down cookie sheet generously with the cornmeal, to prevent the dough from sticking when you transfer it to the oven. Stretch out the first ball of dough into a long, thin rectangle, approximately a foot long and six inches wide, by pressing, pinching, and even letting it hang down from your fingertips to let gravity do the work. (If the dough immediately shrinks back, cover with plastic again and let it relax for several minutes before trying again.) The thinner you get it at this point, the crispier the end product will be, but don’t worry about the precise thickness. If the dough tears, just pinch it back together.

When the dough is thin enough for your liking, lay it onto the cornmeal-dusted peel or sheet, and spread with half the topping mixture, making sure to leave a lip of at least half an inch all around to prevent the toppings from sliding off during the transfer. Gently shake the peel or sheet to be sure the pizza isn’t sticking, and then slide the pizzas off the peel/sheet onto the heated stone in the oven with a few quick jerks.

Bake for 10 minutes, or until the dough is a dark golden brown and the onions and garlic are beginning to caramelize, then remove to a cooling rack for a few minutes before eating.

Repeat with the remaining half of the dough and topping mixture.

Notes: If you must have cheese, I’d suggest doing what we did with this batch: Add paper-thin slivers or a fine grating of cheese at the absolute last minute, after the pizza is already out of the oven. (We used Manchego, which was lovely.) If you want the cheese to brown, don’t put it on the pizzas before they go in the oven; add it in the last few minutes of baking, once the dough has already set and is starting to turn golden. This will ensure that the crust stays crisp and the cheese doesn’t burn or turn oily.

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Another Legitimate Thirty Minute Meal: Southwestern Lentil Salad

Since I’m trying to get back into the swing of cooking, despite still not having as much time for it as I’d like, tonight’s experimental dinner was particularly gratifying. When I got home, all I had decided was that I wanted to do something with lentils, but by the time I was finished adding components, I had a dinner that was easy, quick, nutritious, and most importantly, really delicious. The richness of the lentils and the avocado, the crunch of the cucumber and green onion, the sweetness of the tomatoes, the tang of the lemon, and the sharpness of the spices and cilantro all combined beautifully into a simple but flavorful southwest-ish whole. In addition to making a very satisfactory dinner, I think this will be a great addition to the summer barbecue season.

Southwestern Lentil Salad
Serves 4 as a main dish, and at least six as a side dish

1 cup black lentils
2 garlic cloves
1/2 an English cucumber, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 scallions, sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of one large lemon
Salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1 avocado, diced

Place the lentils and garlic in a small saucepan, and cover generously with water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer vigorously until the lentils are tender, but not mushy.

In the meantime, combine the cucumber, tomatoes, scallions, oil, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, and salt and pepper in a large bowl, and leave to marinate until the lentils are cooked. Once the lentils are ready, drain thoroughly and add to the bowl, tossing to combine. Taste and correct the seasonings as necessary, then add the diced avocado, stirring gently to avoid mashing it.

Notes: You could use any kind of lentil here, but I favor the black or green varieties over ordinary brown lentils when I’m making salads, because they keep their shape much better. If you would like to make it ahead, it should keep very well in the refrigerator for quite some time, but I would not add the avocado until the last minute, since it begins to brown very quickly after being cut open.

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I’ll Give You a Thirty-Minute Meal

This is what a genuine thirty-minute meal looks like.

Dinner at the Disdain manse this evening was a colorful, healthy, economical, and realistic dish of whole wheat pasta with chard and toasted pine nuts, prepared in twenty-nine minutes and change. It did not involve any wacky uses of convenience foods, nominal dressing-up of prepared items, juggling a dozen products between the cupboard and the stove, or bacterial cross-contamination. With the exception of the chard, which I bought at the farmer’s market over the weekend, all of the ingredients are cupboard staples, and since it’s just me and the Lord (I mean Mr. Disdain, not Jehovah), there is enough left over for us to have tomorrow’s lunch taken care of as well. And I only have one pasta pot, one wide saute pan, a pair of tongs, a ladle, a cutting board, and a chef’s knife to clean up.

Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Rainbow Chard and Pine Nuts
(Serves 4)

8 oz whole wheat spaghetti or other pasta

1 bunch rainbow chard (regular or Swiss chard work fine)
3 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
Kosher salt to taste

Start a large pot of water boiling for the pasta. Once the water boils, salt generously and add the pasta.

Meanwhile, chop the stems of the chard thinly, and slice the leafy part into ribbons. Mince the garlic.

In a wide saute pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the chard stems, garlic, pepper flakes, and two good pinches of salt. Saute until the stems begin to turn tender, then add the shredded greens, in two batches. Continue to saute until the greens begin to wilt, then add the balsamic vinegar and a large ladleful of the water from the pasta pot. Stir occasionally until the greens are tender, adding more pasta water as necessary. Once the pasta is cooked, remove it from the pot with tongs and drop it into the saute pan, stirring over the heat until all the liquid has evaporated.

Add the pine nuts, toss again to combine, and serve.

Notes: The balsamic vinegar may sound like a weird addition, but greens really like a bit of acidity, and it’s perfectly traditional in Italian cooking to go for the agrodolce (sweet and sour) effect that way. I frequently emphasize the effect by adding some golden raisins, briefly soaked in hot water while I’m preparing the other ingredients to soften them a bit.

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The Zen of Aglio Olio

Perhaps it’s my Italian blood, or perhaps it’s just the carbs, but there’s something wonderfully calming about the ritual of preparing and eating a plate of spaghetti aglio olio (spaghetti with garlic and olive oil). It’s so easy to prepare that it’s my standard mid-week I-can’t-deal-with-cooking dinner of choice, but I still never get sick of the silky, smoky tangle of noodles, although I do add variety by throwing in halved cherry tomatoes one night, a handful of chopped basil another night, a sprinkle of incendiary red pepper flakes yet another night, or a generous scattering of crackly golden pan-fried bread crumbs still another.

The only two tricks I’ve discovered to preparing it properly are 1) you must not, under any circumstances, burn the garlic, and 2) you must slightly undercook the noodles and finish them off in the pan you warmed the oil and garlic in. I learned the secret of both from Lidia Bastianich, one of the least irritating of the celebrity chefs, and so like my grandmother that I feel completely comfortable whenever I watch her. Lidia’s method is to warm several thinly sliced cloves of garlic and several tablespoons of good (but not necessarily extra virgin) olive oil in a large, shallow pan on low heat while the pasta is boiling on another burner. When the garlic starts to barely turn golden, drop several large ladlefuls of the pasta water into the pan, which will stop the garlic from getting any darker and also provide just enough liquid to finish cooking the pasta and serve as a vector to carry the garlic flavor into the pasta, instead of just leaving an oily film on the outer surface. When the pasta is almost al dente, scoop it out of its pot (I use tongs) and deposit it into the pan, turning up the heat a bit and stirring it gently until all the liquid is absorbed.

This entire procedure takes less than twenty minutes, and can be done on autopilot after the worst possible day, but I try to concentrate on the flow of it all the same, turning it into a meditation that nourishes the soul as well as the body.

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