Family Meal: Steamed Clams, Balsamic Strawberries with Arugula, Crisp Cooked Jerusalem Artichokes

I count myself really lucky: I love having dinner with my family. It's not a chore, it's not something I have to be guilted into doing. It's something I know I'm really lucky to be able to do at all, and on top of that, enjoying it is a real added bonus. My brother's hilarious, my dad keeps the wine flowing, and getting down with my mother in the kitchen is always a blast. The dishwasher in their new apartment is yet another added bonus.

So Saturday, my brother Jonathan and his girlfriend Eva and I decided on the spur of the moment to go over for dinner. I went to the Greenmarket to see what looked good, then came home and decided what to make. What I ended up with was littleneck clams, Jerusalem artichokes, mushrooms, spring garlic (like green garlic, but different), strawberries, arugula, and some fresh chevre. Pretty much a list of ingredients that was going to end up delicious no matter what I did to it. So I cracked open How to Cook Everything and decided on the following.

I've been using clams more and more, because I love them, they're not as expensive as I initially thought, and they bring their own sauce to the party, which is always appreciated. So far I've made the linguine with clams twice, actually, but this was the first time I made them all by themselves. For the steamed clams recipe, you sauté some garlic and shallots in olive oil, then add the clams, then pour in some white wine, beer, or even water (I used beer). Cover, cook until they all open up, and you're good to go.

The broth left in the bottom of the pot alone made this one worthwhile, and luckily we had the foresight to acquire a nice crusty baguette for sopping it all up when we were done with the clams.

To take advantage of strawberry season, I decided to make Bittman's Balsamic Strawberries with Arugula salad. This recipe was a favorite of mine in the original HTCE, where it was a desert of just the strawberries, but I was intrigued by the combination of the bitter arugula and the sweet berries. Bittman says you can add some fresh goat cheese as well, so I figured I may as well do that too (in retrospect, though, I'd leave it out next time--I don't think it added much to the salad).

You cut up the strawberries and let them soak in a bit of balsamic vinegar (this is a recipe where its worth it to use really good vinegar) and a tiny bit of pepper, for about ten minutes or so. Then you just toss with the arugula and cheese and some olive oil and it's good to go. The flavor combination is incredible. This one's going into heavy rotation--it's really easy, complex, and it borders on fancy, something I don't always get to pull off. The only catch with this one is that it's only going to taste this good during strawberry season.

Finally, the Jerusalem artichoke dish that I've already made a handful of times. This time I also added the mushrooms I got at the market, which only made the dish earthier and more complex.

I can't believe I didn't know about this funny looking vegetable sooner! The HTCE project keeps on giving.

So that was it: wine, food, family. What else is there?

Taco Night: Fish Tacos, Real Refried Beans, Mexican Cheese Salsa, Guacamole

Fish tacos: I hear they're transcendent, but impossible to find in New York. Pinche Tacqueria on Mott Street (they also have a place on Lafayette now) makes a pretty tasty one, but I have no West Coast reference point. Anyway, Bittman's recipe for fish tacos is the central point for his "Weekday Mexican-Style Spread," which also includes refried beans, guacamole, and salsa.

Now, Taco Night has always been a favorite in the Fishner house. My mom makes the most delicious white people tacos in the world: ground turkey, Old El Paso taco seasoning, diced tomatoes, cucumbers and grated cheese. They're great. They are totally inauthentic and totally amazing. No lime wedges, no radish slices, and sure as hell no cilantro. I've never seen anyone else serve cucumbers with tacos, but you should try it sometime, it's quite nice.

So I'm not ashamed to admit what drew me to this menu in How to Cook Everything: the salsa Bittman suggests, Mexican Cheese Salsa, has cucumbers! Feeling validated by this fact, we decided it was the perfect choice for dinner.

Guacamole, we've covered before (the menu actually suggests Crunchy Corn Guacamole, which is the same thing with 1/2 cup corn thrown in, but no corn was to be had).

The salsa is very simple: you've got diced tomatoes, cucumbers, salt, pepper, lime juice, onion, and minced chile (I used a jalapeno) along with 1/2 cup of queso fresco. This stuff is simple, really fresh tasting, and perfect for tacos (especially if you like them with cucumbers, which you probably will). It will only get better once tomato season arrives! I can't wait for tomato season. But I digress.

Now, the fish taco recipe is very flexible; it's listed as "Fish Tacos, Four Ways," because you can poach the fish, as it's suggested in the main recipe, but you can also grill, broil, or fry the fish. We opted for broiling, as it seemed the easiest: throw some olive oil, salt and pepper on the fish, stick it in the broiler until it's just barely cooked through, and you're good to go.

So that's pretty much the fish tacos; serve them with lime wedges, that rare essential garnish. I don't know about you, but I just need some extra lime juice to squeeze down on these guys.

Meanwhile, the refried beans, something that I did not expect to taste as good as it did. You take 3-4 cups of beans and mash them in some hot fat; whether it's lard, butter, or neutral oil is up to you (we opted for neutral oil, and it was still delicious). Then you add some onion, cumin, and cayenne (we were out of cayenne, and so we used some chili powder instead which worked pretty damn well) and let it cook until the onions are soft. There is room for lots of interpretation on this one. Finally, just add some of the bean liquid to thin it out to the consistency you like. Delicious.

This was definitely one of the top five meals since the project began. Spring is here, and this all tasted like it. Are you all siked? I am.

Gaff Factory: Shrimp Jambalaya and Broiled Pineapple

We weren't five minutes into cooking, and Mom was already worried about how she'd be portrayed on the internet. "Are you going to write on your blog that this was my fault?" See, the Jambalaya recipe calls for uncooked shrimp, but my mom grabbed the bag of cooked shrimp in the freezer aisle instead. It's a common mistake, and I blame not my mother but the companies that make the packaging so hard to distinguish. These packages need to say "RAW" or "COOKED" in bigger letters than they say shrimp. Making one label blue and the other red does not clear anything up. Get it together, seafood distributors of America. Luckily there were so many more goofs to be made during this meal, precooked shrimp was the least of our troubles. Surely it was not enough to derail our meal.


Family dinner! "I've been thinking of making the jambalaya from the book," Mom said when she called me at work. So here was my first chance to take the project on the road, to a whole new (and extremely well lit) kitchen. I came over after work and we got down to business. It's always fun to cook at my parents' place, because they have a dishwasher, the aforementioned lighting, a really nice stereo in the kitchen, basically they've just got it all figured out. And the company's not half bad either. The snacks provided while cooking (pictured below) are also far superior to those in our usual digs.


In a perfect world, the recipe works something like this: heat up some oil in a large skillet or pot, throw in diced onions and red peppers and let those brown. Then you add the rice, thyme, cayenne (Mom didn't have any so we used chili powder, which did the trick) and garlic. Then you add some canned tomatoes, and let that go for another few minutes. Then, you add the stock, and lower the heat a bit. This was where gaff number two came up, which I will take responsibility for (though I really blame a certain high quality supermarket in Red Hook, BK).


Not satisfied with the kosher salt I'd usually use to season such a mixture, I dug out a disposable plastic sea salt grinder from said Red Hook market. Somehow, my fervent grinding twisted the whole top off of the container, and about 1/3 cup of very coarse salt tumbled right into the pan. Kind of not good. I fished out as much as I could, and we decided to dilute with more water and more rice, a cup and a cup and a half at a time (respectively). I think we ended up adding 4-5 more cups of water than the recipe called for. It still tasted a little salty, but not as bad as it had before. So, you let the rice and stock bubble away for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, uncovered (surprising, right?) until there's just a small amount of stock left. At that point, you add the shrimp. We didn't, because our shrimp was already cooked. What we did was let the rice absorb the rest of the stock, and then stir in the shrimp after we'd taken it off the heat. This way we figured they wouldn't get all rubbery, just warmed through. Then we chopped up the parsley, which (gaff #3) we then forgot to actually add to the dish. Which is fine, because as he reminded us during dinner, Jonathan HATES parsley. He was pretty offended we'd thought of putting it in at all.


Anyway, all in all, it was pretty delicious. Yeah, it might have been richer without all the extra rice and water, and it could have been shrimpier if the little guys had actually cooked in the pot instead of just warming up in it. But it was pretty delicious overall, Reva and Steve kept the wine flowing, and, you know, there's something about a meal with your family that you can't get anywhere else. Next week, Mom wants to make pizza, so we'll see how that goes. I can say this: I will be sticking with regular salt (seriously, they don't have any of that sea salt left anyway).


Oh, and for dessert, we broiled some pineapple. Ever had grilled pineapple? Same idea: just stick it in the broiler until it gets nice and charred. It's a fruit that's just totally unleashed when you get a nice char on it. Brush it wish some vegetable oil before you cook it. I never thought to do it under the broiler but I certainly will be doing it again.