This, that, and cooking

 

Salmon rillettes.

I am full of myself tonight because I cooked a really good supper for a guest. I tend to think it was a light supper more suited to summer, but half of it was black bean soup. So that was hardy enough for tonight’s 40-plus degrees. The soup was a new quick, easy recipe I found—and it delivered just what it promised. Simply canned black beans, not rinsed, chicken broth, a bit of green chilies, and that was it. Lesson learned: for this recipe, don’t drain and rinse the beans. That sauce contains lots of vitamins and helps thicken your soup. Served with a dollop of yogurt, a sprig of cilantro, and a lime wedge. It was the lime juice that absolutely made the difference.

The black bean soup wasn't beautiful, but it tasted great. 

A note about the chilies in the soup: the recipe called for a small amount of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce. I don’t know about your heat tolerance, but mine s about zero. And every time I see the words “Adobo sauce,” I run the other way. Once I made salpicon (a Mexican dish, often a salad, that combines several ingredients bound together with a sauce) that had chilies in adobo sauce for the binding. Even the first day, it was too hot for me. But it kept getting hotter each day. I gave the remains to friends who declared they liked hot, but even they couldn’t handle it. I have since had salpicon in a restaurant, I think in El Paso, and it was good. Apparently, I just had the wrong recipe. But I will never cook with adobo sauce again.

The other half of our dinner was salmon rillettes. I always thought rillettes meant a kind of patty-like thing similar to croquettes, but not so. I found this recipe in America’s Test Kitchen, and it clearly made a spread, albeit with some of the fish flaked so that the final dish had some texture. Although the recipe called for fresh salmon, poached at home, I used a can of the Alaska Gold I had. Other ingredients were smoked salmon, crème fraiche, lemon juice, butter, and a bit of mustard. Served with baguette slices.

I’d share these recipes, but I’ll have to think a bit about adapting them to make them my own and avoiding plagiarizing. But I have to say, both dishes were a hit tonight. My guest, Mary V., is my kind of eater—she likes salads and smoked salmon and caviar, a kind of eclectic list, and fixing dinner for her is always a fun challenge. I want something light but unique and in line with her tastes. She routinely asks to bring something, but I am happier to cook for her. It gives me a chance to experiment with recipes that intrigue me but not my family. The other night when I fixed a creamy cucumber salad (delicious but it didn’t keep well—yogurt separates out!) and pinto bean salad (good, but needed more dressing), it was the same kind of experimenting that I enjoy.

Yesterday was such a busy evening I didn’t blog. After spending the day at my computer, I was glad to sit over wine and cheese with Mary for our regular Tuesday night happy hour. After she left, I fixed a chicken casserole for the family (Christian said he loved it, Jacob didn’t like it, I thought it was okay but not outstanding) and a lettuce salad. I’ve been making a dressing of wine white vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper and then sprinkling lots of fresh (I cannot emphasize that enough) grated Parmesan. It was great last night, but when I dressed some lettuce with it for a light lunch salad today it was too acidic.

After supper last night, it was on to the Berkeley Place Association quarterly zoom meeting. By the time that was over, I was tired and figured I had nothing new to say in a blog. I am worn out with blogging about who won the House and trump’s egoistic announcement for another presidential run.

Today has been a cancellation day: my hearing aid appointment this morning cancelled, because the audiologist had a sick child; my lunch for tomorrow cancelled because Jean still has a bad cough. Mary V. told me tonight that she had several engagements cancel this week, and she attributed it all to adults now getting the RSV which had previously only plagued children. I look at cancellations as a gift—more time for writing, which is exactly what I did today and will do tomorrow. But I am sorry to miss the audiologist (my family wanted her to work magic before we all get together next week) and the lunch with a church friend who is now in assisted living and needs friendship.

So a full week is turning out unexpectedly but okay. How about you? How’s your week going?

A fiddle what?

 

Sometimes my experiments in cooking alarm even me. Last night it was fiddlehead ferns. Central Market sent out an email advising that they are available only briefly in the spring. Get them now while you can! Well, who can resist that kind of salesmanship? Surely not me. So I included the ferns with my order, but knowing that my family would be skeptical, I thought I’d order a small amount. A half pound.

Do you know how many fiddlehead ferns are in a half pound? Or how expensive they are (we won’t even go there). Last night, my family was gone, and I was fixing dinner for Jean and me, so I decided about noon to search directions on the web. Well, I was almost sorry I did that. I rinsed them—and the first water came out muddy, though it was not dirt but moss-like stuff that was attached to the ferns. And not all of it came off. So then I hand washed each fern—that took some bending over the sink which made my back ache. Then I parboiled them for two minutes, prepared an ice bath, plunged them into that, and let them sit for an hour in ice water. Are you seeing how much work this was?

I drained them and realized there was still quite a bit of that moss-like stuff on them, so more hand cleaning. Finally, I decided that they were ready to cook—if that moss was bad for you, Central Market would have taken it off or put a warning label or something (see the faith I have in my favorite grocery store?). I told Jean I would sauté them briefly in butter, salt and pepper and then add a squirt of lemon—which I promptly forgot when I served them.

We had tuna pasties, potato salad, and fiddlehead ferns. Jean liked them better than I did. Despite all that boiling and soaking, they retained a nice crispness, and the taste was somewhere between young asparagus and fresh green beans. They were good but not remarkable. I decided on the path of least resistance, sent them home with Jean, and never mentioned them to my family. I hope she uses them in a salad because I bet they’d be really good.

Otherwise, it was a cooking weekend—Sunday’s real project, before I realized how much time and trouble the ferns would be, was to make tuna pasties. They were good, but I need to work on the proportion of filling to biscuits. But Saturday night—ah, that was a triumph.

I thought Jordan and I were cooking scallops and lemony-herbed rice together, but she kept disappearing. So I did the rice. Now, I’m not much of a rice cooker—we didn’t eat it when I was a kid, and my adult idea was pretty much to follow Uncle Ben’s instructions. But this called for sautéing the raw rice in butter, with green onions, then steaming in chicken broth and finishing with lemon butter, parsley, and the chopped green parts of the onion. Pretty darn good, but by the time I got it ready, I’d run a marathon. I told Jordan she could cook the scallops.

Panic ensued, because she thinks I’m the only one who gets them right—crisp on the outside and soft inside. I talked her through it, with her saying all the time, “I’m in the weeds here.” Because I was being cautious, we didn’t cook them at as high a heat as we should have (induction hot plates necessitate some decisions) and they cooked a bit too long. But they were wonderful. And Jordan said, “That was fun! My first time to cook them!” So the evening and the meal were successes. Christian was out to a men’s only dinner, postponed from its usual pre-Christmas date.

And now I have so many leftovers—ate sausage for lunch, chicken in crescent rolls for supper with the lemony rice. Still have a cheeseburger, some tuna filling for pasties, scallops (just went in the freezer tonight)—and I can’t believe I just marinated some chicken drumettes for tomorrow. We’ll have them with the rest of the potato salad. We do not suffer from a lack of variety around here.