Sous-vide Lentils

Sous-vide is a great way to cook lentils as it's easy to get perfect texture without the lentils exploding and turning to mush. We like these lentils both warm and cold.

To make the lentils, put 2 c. of green, brown or black lentils (DuPuy are our favorites) in a large Ziplock™ bag. Add 6 c. of warm water, a pinch of dried rosemary (or small stem of fresh), a smashed clove of garlic and 1 tsp salt. Cook sous-vide at 190°F for about 1.25 hours. Check for doneness. If very close, turn off agitator and allow to sit another 15 m in the cooling water.

Warm

We warm them with a bit of water in the microwave then dress with EVOO, S&P. Great with fish!

Salad

This is basically the lentil salad in Alice Water's Simple Food. Mince a French shallot and "pickle" for 5-10 min with some red wine vinegar and salt. Mix with a few cups of cooled, cooked lentils and add minced parsley, EVOO, S&P. You can top with cubed cucumbers, sliced or wedged radish, crumbled feta cheese, halved cherry tomatoes, more tender herbs, etc..

homemade freezer burritos

Inspired by a comical NYT post, I made the following: Season up refried beans with taco seasoning or whatever you like, but definitely including garlic, paprika, salt. Wrap large dollops of this, plus lots of grated jack cheese, in flour tortillas, to make small, plain bean-and-cheese burritos, like what you might get in the frozen-food section of the supermarket or at a gas station. Fry the wrapped burritos hot in a tiny bit of oil on both sides to seal them shut as you make them. Keep warm in the oven if you are making lots. Serve with blender salsa and sour cream and guacamole.

ceviche, first try

My first ever attempt at ceviche was to make my blender salsa, add chopped raw white fish, and let it all sit in the fridge until the fish starts to “cook” in the acid. The only changes I made to the salsa are (1) that I chopped the ingredients finely instead of blending them, and (2) that I used more lime juice. Serve with good (maybe homemade) tortilla chips and chopped avocado.

Maybe, in the end, it was too acid? Next time I would stick with one lime, and maybe add some grated lime zest.

blender salsa

This is so easy and so satisfying! Put into a blender (don't chop at all!) 2 small tomatoes (or a container of grape tomatoes), 1 peeled onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 entire bunch of cilantro, 1/2 of a seeded jalapeño (or actually, imho, hot pickled jalapeños are even better than fresh!), the juice of 1 lime, 1 pinch cumin or cumin seeds, and 1 tsp (or more) of salt. Blend briefly, or just pulse it, or alternate pulsing and shaking of the blender pitcher. You don't want to pulverize it all completely (although that's good too!).

Enjoy with chips. Or quesadillas. Or fish. Or freezer burritos. This salsa gets better with time; make it hours in advance if you can. Increase the jalapeño (or include more seeds) if you want it hotter. If you don't have jalapeños, use dashes of hot sauce instead. Add cucumber or mango. Leave out the cilantro if you have haters in your group, and serve with chopped cilantro on the side. Advanced technique: Burn the ingredients in a very hot pan before starting to add some char. Another advanced technique: Blend 3/4 of the ingredients, chop 1/4, and mix it up at the end.

blasphemous tomato salad

You know that time in late summer when you have way too many tomatoes and they are infinitely cheap and absolutely delicious? This recipe is for that time. I'm making it now (June) because the 'fuzz found really great hydroponic heirloom tomatoes at the New York Farmer's Market in Union Square, and bought some in-between flare-ups of violent police activity.

Take a lot of tomatoes. Grate 1/3 of them. Yes, this is the blasphemy. Grate them with a box grater. Chop (or slice) the rest. Mix the grated and chopped tomatoes with red-wine vinegar (maybe less than 1 tbsp for every pound of tomatoes?) and salt (maybe half a tsp for every pound of tomatoes?). Throw in a glug of olive oil if you like. Let stand for an hour or so.

When you are ready to eat, toast hearty slices of beautiful, bourgeois bread, scrape them with a split clove of garlic (to make them garlicky), spoon on surfeit of tomato salad and garnish with basil, olive oil, and anything else you like such as mozzarella, proscuitto, bacon, hard cheese, thyme, sea salt, parsley, you name it. Eat like a sinner.

sweet-potato chili

This is a quarantine favorite in my house. It can be made vegetarian or with meat, and it can be made hot or sweet.

Par-boil a half-pound of dried beans of any kind for about an hour in a 250 F (120 C) oven (or you can use a can of beans instead). When they are nearly finished, burn a large onion or two medium onions, chopped to bean size, and a large sweet potato, or a couple small ones, chopped to bean size, in olive oil in a pot. If you are going to use spicy sausage, like chorizo, burn it in the pot after the onions. You want to leave some dark burned bits on the bottom of the pot at this stage!

Add a chopped sweet pepper, some chipotle peppers (dried or from a can) if you want it hot, about 1 tbsp of chili powder and about 1/2 tbsp of cumin and about 1 tbsp of salt. Add water to cover, get it to a boil, and then put it in the oven at 250 F (120 C) for an hour. At the end, beat it up a bit with a fork to get the sweet potato to break up and become the body of the stew.

Possible modifications include: Try other kinds of meat, or even try a new plant-based meat alternative. Increase or reduce hot peppers, or use fresh jalapenos. Add tomato paste perhaps? Or maybe tabasco or vinegar for some acid. It's extremely forgiving, and the quantities of everything are up to you.

Serve with sour cream or yoghurt and chopped cilantro. Serves eight-ish.

white bean and chard soup

I made a beautiful quarantine soup from the larder today: Burn merguez sausage in a pot so that it leaves nice brown sticky stuff on the pan. Substitute anything here; you could use other sausage or fake meat or a chicken thigh or a bone. Or go old-school vegan! (If you go vegan, get your brown from the mirepoix.) Remove the meat to a bowl.

Clean the pan by sautéeing diced onions, carrots, and celery (that is, mirepoix) in olive oil. Add white beans (either from a can or parboiled from dry for 40 minutes in water). Add water, salt, pepper, garlic, and maybe a mushroom-broth cube or something like that. Bring this all to a boil on the stove and then simmer it in the oven at 300 F (150 C) for 40 min.

At the end, add a bunch of finely chopped swiss chard (silver beet or equivalent; any lettuce will do), and the crispy sausage bits. Return to the oven for 15 min or until the lettuce is wilted. Serve with harissa for hotness.

I'm being unspecific about quantities here, but this truly isn't rocket science. The only thing that really matters is the ratio of salt to total mass.

chowder fist algorithm with a discussion of salt

Chowder is deeply satisfying and dead easy. Here's my algorithm:

Chowder is big chunks of POTATO and OTHER THINGS in a broth built of FAT, ONION, WATER and CREAM.

• POTATO is any somewhat starchy variety because you want it to fall apart a bit and thicken the soup. I like Russet and Yukon Gold.
• OTHER THINGS can be any or all of seafood or flaky white fish, corn, bacon.
• FAT is butter, bacon drippings or, hell, even coconut oil.
• ONION is a yellow or white variety and not too sweet. Could also be French shallots in a stretch.
• WATER is, well, water of course, but if you have a bottle of clam juice and are making a fish/seafood chowder, throw that in too.
• CREAM is heavy or whipping cream (otherwise it will curdle) with the addition, if you are making corn chowder, of some "corn-cream" made by grating some of the ears of corn.

Here's how I make about 4-6 servings (about 1 pound of chowder per serving which, I assure you, is not too much).  Measurements are mostly in terms of the volume of my clenched fist (about a cup). Making this is very relaxing (despite the clenching).

• 1-2 thumbs fat
• 1 f (ie. one fist) chopped coarsely onion
• 3 f potatoes peeled and cut in wedges
• 2 f of the other thing(s)
• 1 f heavy cream
• salt and pepper

Put a large, heavy bottomed pot on medium heat. If bacon is one of your other things, add to pot and cook slowly to render out the fat. (Put the bacon bits aside to add back at the end.) Sweat the onion in the fat. Add the potatoes and water to just cover.  Bring to a boil and simmer until spuds are almost tender. Add other things and cook until other things are falling apart (if white fish) or about 10 minutes.  Add cream and season with salt and (generously with) pepper (see below).  Turn off the heat and, with the lid on, let the chowder get comfortable for about 20 minutes.

The Salt

With a dish as simple as this, adequate seasoning is essential.  Salt is the not-so-secret secret ingredient. Now, if you look at the ingredients, you'll notice that, with the exception of bacon and maybe canned clams and the butter, nothing is salted. So how much salt would I expect to add to this?  My rule of thumb (thanks Julia Child) is about 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon salt per pound of unsalted food.  A pint of water is a pound and two of my fists are about a pint (two cups).  There are six fists of ingredients in the list plus the water, which is going to be about another 4 fists.  10 fists is about 5 pints so I would expect to need at least 5 x 1/2 tsp of salt, which is just shy of 1 tablespoon.

If that scares you, measure out your tablespoon into a little bowl and add it a 1/2 tsp at a time. Stir well between additions and keep tasting until you find yourself thinking, "Dear Lord, that is delicious.  I must eat an entire bowl immediately!" My guess is there won't be any salt left in your bowl.  In fact, you may have even gone beyond.

southern-style cornbread

B and his girlfriend SL are staying with us during The Confinement and she is gluten-sensitive, so I'm exploring gluten-free tastiness. A number of family members are also keen on eating a more plant-based or plant-rich diet, so tonight's menu was Vegetarian Chili with Southern-style Cornbread.

This cornbread is amazing.  The batter is very soupy; you won't believe it could turn into delicious cornbread, but have faith. The recipe fits nicely in an 8" cast iron pan. For the fam, I triple it and use a 14" pan.

You need:

• 2 tbsp fat (half-and-half butter and oil, bacon drippings, rendered fatback,...)
• 1 cup cornmeal (not corn flour: think polenta rather than tortillas)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 c boiling water
• 3/4 c buttermilk (you could do half plain yoghurt, half milk too)
• 1 egg, beaten

Place your 8" cast iron pan in an oven and heat to 450°F.

Put 1/3 c cornmeal in a large bowl.  Put remainder of cornmeal in a medium bowl, add remaining dry ingredients and stir. Pour boiling water over the cornmeal in the large bowl and stir to break up.  Stir in buttermilk, breaking up lumps, and then the egg.   Stir in dry ingredients.  It will be soupy. Don't worry.

Remove the pan from the oven, add fat and swirl to coat, but don't get fancy. Don't burn yourself with that extremely hot pan.  Pour in the batter and return to oven.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes.  Will be golden brown on top and pass the "toothpick test". Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before devouring.

oven fried potato chips (crisps)

More quarantine food! Pre-heat the oven to 375 or 400 F. In that pre-heating oven place a large cookie sheet with walls or roasting pans or a few cast-iron skillets. Meanwhile, slice two or three potatoes into 1-mm-ish-thick slices (thicker than potato chips or crisps). When the oven is hot, put a layer of olive oil into the pans and give it a minute or two in the oven to get very hot. Pull out the pans and line them with a single layer of slices of potato only very slightly overlapping. Generously salt and pepper. Return the pans to the oven and check every five minutes. The chips are done when the median chip is half brown! Remove from the oven, cool, put on a plate with a paper towel (to absorb excess oil) and add taste sands like hot flakes, cayenne, brewer's yeast, tajin, etc.