Category Archives: recipe

Leek & tarragon risotto with pecans

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Leek & tarragon risotto

Want to hear a funny mondegreen? There’s a line in the Belle and Sebastian song, She’s Losing It, that goes, “Inch for inch and pound for pound, who needs boys when there’s Lisa around.” Well…David (H,C.G.) initially heard it as “Inch for inch and pound for pound, who needs boys when there’s leeks around.” Tee hee!! The leeks I bought (to recreate Remy’s soup) were extraordinarily large… Ahem. Okay, I’ll settle down.

I didn’t really want to make leek soup, mostly because I’d just made soup. But I did want to make something with a broth, because I thought it would be a handy way to use the trimmings from the leeks. (Why the heck are leeks so expensive around here? Aren’t they supposed to be a humble vegetable?) So I decided to make a risotto. And I decided to add tarragon and lots of parsley, because I’ve been in the mood for parsley lately, with its fresh green springlike flavor. And then I decided to top the risotto with toasted pecans, because all that creamy rice can use a flavorful crunch.

The broth is fairly important in a risotto, I think you’ll find. I generally make a broth with shallot, garlic, tomato paste, carrots, mushrooms, marmite, tamari, a handful of french lentils and whatever green thing I have around the house. I thought I’d like to make this a little simpler and brighter, though. So I used leek trimmings, a few sprigs of parsley, some fennel, some garlic, some frozen lettuce (darn my veg drawers!) and a couple of teaspoons of tomato paste. Turned out very nice! You can use what you have though. Even an already-made one, if you like the flavor.

It’s gotta be She’s Losing It from Belle and Sebastian.
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Portobello “steaks” topped with spinach and herbs

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portobello steak

If you’re a vegetarian, you’ve heard it a million times. “Don’t you miss steak? If I made you a steak you’d gobble it up. How can you live without steak?” Let’s see…No. No. and Easily. And then they say, “Haven’t you ever heard a carrot cry?” And then you stick your fingers in your ears and say “La la la la la, I can’t hear you!” To be honest, I don’t miss steak, because I have portobello mushrooms, and I think they’re far tastier than any steak I’ve ever eaten. They’re something of a special occasion meal around here, because they’re not cheap, but they’re still far less expensive than steak, right? I like to cook them till they’re very very dark and crispy. Quite black on the edges. You can do this is a skillet, or you can do it in a roasting pan in the oven. I like portobellos with lots of olive oil, balsamic and rosemary. These ingredients mix with the mushroom’s own delicious juices to form a wonderful sauce…the mushrooms are tender inside, crispy outside and full of flavor. I sauteed some baby spinach and arugula with chopped mushrooms, garlic, rosemary and basil, and after the mushrooms were cooked to perfection, I put a scoop of this mixture on top, and then a slice (or two) of mozzarella over that. We had them with some thick cut roasted french fries. You won’t miss your meat!

Here’s Fats Waller’s Rump Steak Serenade.
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Remy’s soup

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Remy’s soup

Have you ever wondered what Remy puts in the soup that Linguini nearly ruins in Ratatouille? Of course you have! We all have. Well, here in the test kitchens of The Ordinary, we’ve done exhaustive research to arrive at the definitive version of the soup, with the precise ingredients that Remy used. Precisely definitive! We watched this scene dozens of times. We’ve listened to characters’ descriptions of the soup, and we’ve analyzed the inner workings of the kitchen to arrive at a soup that is a “spicy yet subtle taste experience.” Let us walk you through it. To begin with, when Linguini nearly knocks the pot off the stove, the soup looks like tomato sauce. We determined, decidedly, that it’s probably some sort of tomato soup. We kept that part simple, but we did add a spicy element, because nothing we saw Remy add could be described as “spicy.” Linguini adds tap water, an entire bunch of scallions, white wine, and salt, lots of salt. Noted. Remy adds broth, cream, garlic, thyme, black pepper, cubes of potato, leeks, parsley, chervil, more salt, bay leaves and, we believe, basil. He later states, when questioned by Linguini, that he DID NOT add oregano or rosemary, which they both identify as “spices,” although we, here at The Ordinary, would call them “herbs.” The soup turned out delicious! Spicy, yet subtle. My son, something of a Ratatouille scholar himself, ate three bowls, but declared that the color was too rosy. I’m not an imaginary french rat, for heaven’s sake! I’m not actually going to add an entire container of cream!

Here’s Souped Up from the Ratatouille soundtrack to listen to as you leap over the pot, gleefully adding ingredients.
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Paté en croute – vegetarian style

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Pate en croute

This dish is so fancy! How fancy is it? Well, you’ve got your paté, and you’ve got your croute. That’s fancy! Can’t you just hear Mrs. Patmore saying, “Daisy, stop your daydreaming, and get this up to the grand dining room before Lady Mary collapses in her corset!” Of course, in that scenario, this would probably be stuffed with pheasants. Not here, my friend!

Break it down, and this isn’t hoity toity at all. It’s two of my favorite flavors together – roasted mushrooms & french lentils – mixed with ground almonds, ground hazelnuts, a bit of cheese and some herbs. And all wrapped in a peppery, flaky crust. Now doesn’t that sound good? And healthy? This isn’t hard to make, and most of the components can be made ahead and saved until you’re good and ready for them. I believe there are pans devoted to the preparation of patés. I don’t have one of those! I do have a nice loaf pan from ikea. It’s a little longer and thinner than your average loaf pan. In truth, any such loaf pan would do. This serves quite a few people, and it does seem special, so it would make a nice dinner party meal. But we had a nice weeknight dinner of it- thick slices of this concoction, roasted rosemary potatoes and a big salad.

Here’s Fancy Pants, by Count Basie and his orchestra.
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Collards with sweet, spicy, salty peanuts

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Collards and spicy peanuts

Sometimes the recipe picks the song, and sometimes the song picks the recipe. Most of the time, I’ll think of what I’d like to cook (and eat!) and the music will come into my head while I’m making it. Yesterday, as I was wheeling around town, I started thinking about the perfection of the song Salt Peanuts by Dizzy Gillespie. Honestly – have you heard it? It’s killer! The only words in the song are…”Salt peanuts, salt peanuts.” Right now I can’t think of anything better than that!

Then I got to thinking about how I don’t cook with peanuts very often. I cook with all sorts of other nuts. Tree nuts, but not peanuts. We eat peanuts in their shells. Half the household eats peanut butter in their sandwiches every single day. But I don’t cook with peanuts very often.

spicy salty sweet peanuts

To make it about Salt Peanuts, the peanuts would have to be salty. I also wanted them to be a little bit sweet, and a little bit spicy. And then I wanted to eat them with collard greens, because I love greeeeeeeeeeeeeeens!! But I kept the collards simple, because the peanuts were very flavorful. The way I made the peanuts, they got a bit burny-tasting. Blackened, if you will. I really like that flavor. If you don’t, keep a close eye on your peanuts and don’t let the pan get too hot.

Here’s a performance of Salt Peanuts from 1947.
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Butternut tart with caramelized fennel

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Butternut tart

Tart pan, tart pan
Who’s got a tart pan?
I do, that’s who.
Salty or sweet,
messy or neat,
Who can make tarts now?
I can.

Did I tell you that I got a tart pan? I did? I’m totally not excited about it at all. I’m, like, pfffft. Tart pan, whatever.

I used it last week to make a sweet tart. And I used it this week to make a savory tart! I wanted it to be a bit like a pumpkin pie – with the butternut squash roasted, pureed and mixed into a sort of custard. And I thought the fennel would be pretty AND tasty, it’s bright distinctive taste mellowed by a bit of caramelization in white wine and balsamic vinegar. I put some lemon zest in the crust, to tart up the tart, because squash and fennel are quite sweet. I thought very hard about the seasoning, because I’m making a real effort to keep it simple – to choose two or three herbs and spices that go well together. I chose nutmeg and sage – both very nice with butternut squash, and quite lovely together!

Here’s Art Pepper with Nutmeg
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Artichoke, walnut and feta croquettes

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Artichoke croquettes

We don’t have cable in our house (conscious choice, cable companies! Don’t come calling.) But sometimes at work I can persuade my fellow restaurant patrons to watch the cooking channel. My favorite is Chopped. I can imagine a version at my house. Instead of gleaming counters and well-coiffed judges, you’d have tables full of school work and drawings and old bills, walls coated with little hand prints and globs of paint, and an elderly dog clattering through, bumping into everyone. And the challenge would be to look in my fridge, pick 2 leftovers packed away in plastic boxes, and make something special out of it. I’d win this round!! I had some leftover mashed potatoes, a half-used can of artichoke hearts, and a bit of extra sandwich bread on hand. What did I make? Lovely croquettes – crispy, flavorful and delicious. Croquettes can be a little stodgy, what with the bread and potatoes, so I wanted them to have bright flavor – something that would go well with feta and artichoke hearts. Hence the fennel and lemon. They turned out really nice! We ate them with a smooth roasted red pepper sauce (open jar of roasted peppers!), which the kids later happily ate on pasta for lunch.

Here’s Vaios Malliaras with Aginara (artichoke) Greek folk clarinet music from 1933. Odd and really lovely!
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Coconut cookie nests with royal dark eggs

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Coconut cookie nests with royal dark eggs

Coconut cookies with royal dark eggs! This bee has been in my bonnet ever since I made the chocolate chip cookies with cadbury mini eggs last week. It has been an extremely noisy bee! When I saw how pretty the blue mini-eggs turned out upon being baked, I wanted to situate them in a more nest-like environment. Of course I thought of coconut! Of course I thought of the dark chocolate eggs with the coconut! So that’s what we’ve got. When I made them I started out mixing the colors, but David H.C.G. (Husband, culinary genius) said they’d look more like real birds’ nests if all the eggs were the same color. Unless, of course, a cuckoo had been to visit! These are big, pretty, tasty cookies. I told my boys one after school, one after dinner, and that’s it!

Here’s Charlie Parker with Bird’s Nest.
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Pumpkin seed and arugula bisque

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Pumpkin seed arugula soup

There’s something wrong with my refrigerator. It freezes the vegetables in my vegetable drawers. I’ve tried adjusting humidity and tampering with the temperature, but to no avail! But it turns out to be another one of those happy accidents, because my malfunctioning veg drawers started a short but winding path that resulted in this soup! I accidentally left a container of baby arugula and a head of red leaf lettuce at the bottom of one of the drawers. They didn’t stand a chance! As I looked at my clump of translucent, wilty greens (strangely pretty, as it happens) I immediately thought of soup meagre. It’s one of our favorite soups here at The Ordinary, and perfect for any damaged green thing you might have in your vegetable drawer.

Earlier in the week, whilst browsing in the bulk food section of the grocery store, as one does, these beautiful shiny green seeds caught my magpie eye. I had to have some! I’ve tried roasting pumpkin seeds every halloween, with the coating on, and they always turn out a little too tough to eat. Here was the tender core! Oh boy. Pepita. So pretty! I vaguely remembered that pepita are used in a certain kind of mole, so I hopped it back to the produce section and bought myself a jalapeno pepper.

Flash forward to the soup meagre. My one rule about soup meagre (and a very flexible rule it is, too!) is that everything that goes in there should be green. Well, guess what! Pepita are green! Jalapenos are green…can you see where this is going?

This turned out to be one of the better soups I’ve ever made. (And I’ve made a lot of soup!) The taste of pumpkin seeds is hard to describe. Nutty, savory, pleasant in every way! And they’re very good for you too, apparently! Full of iron, which is a big concern of vegetarian moms everywhere!

Here’s Pepita by Calexico.
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Pigeon peas, saffron and artichoke hearts. W/ jerk-spiced roti

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pigeon peas and roti

When I was in college, I used to meet my brother (and best friend) every Thursday night at the Jamaican Delight restaurant. We’d both spent some time away…he’d been in Italy and Minnesota, I’d been at Oxford. We’d both had some rough times, and now we were back in the city across from our home town. It had always seemed like a last resort, but now…it seemed magical! It smelled sweet (turns out there’s a candy factory there!), the people were wonderful, we both had remarkable mentorish teachers, the possibilities were dizzying. So we’d meet every Thursday night, and talk about everything that was important to us, then, in our early twenties…when everything is important. We’d go across the street to Spirit Mart, buy one beer each, and order the same thing every time…vegetarian delight, vegetable roti, plantains (if they had them) and grape nut ice cream.

The other day I bought some plantains, because I remembered loving them, and I thought my boys might like them, too. Then, of course, I had to try to make some roti. And somehow pigeon peas fit into this picture. So I asked my husband what would be nice with pigeon peas. He consulted his inner culinary genius and said, how about saffron and artichoke hearts. Wellawella! What a good idea that turned out to be! So I made a spicy, brothy mix of pigeon peas and art hearts. Some basmati rice. Some fried plantains. And I made some roti, but not the kind you can wrap around vegetables, like we used to have at the old Jamaican Delight. Since I had the oil all heated up for the plantains, I decided to drop the roti in there. Oh, yum! And I had flavored the dough very subtly with jerk seasonings, viz: thyme, allspice and cayenne. Okay, that’s my version of jerk seasonings. Nice though! It was a really fun meal to eat, with lots of little parts that added up to taste well together.

Here’s The Jerk, by the Clarendonians.
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