Scallion pancakes

Lunch, complete with iPad (because reading) and spilled sauce (because real life)

One of the unexpected benefits of my new fridge-dwelling friend is that it has multiple uses. In addition to the whole wheat sourdough loaf that is the centerpiece of Bittman Bread (and my primary motivation for embarking on starter ownership), it turns out that there are quite a few other things you can do with it. The later chapters of the book provide a number of options, including a recipe for scallion pancakes which is a multi-step procedure. In the recipe notes, however Mark Bittman comments that one of his colleagues makes scallion pancakes using nothing more than a portion of starter and a pile of chopped scallions. I tried it myself this weekend to complement a lunch of leftover fried rice, and it was as good as any recipe that I’ve tried before. Maybe even better, because it was so much easier.

I started by melting about 1 Tbsp/15 g bacon fat in a frying pan. While it heated, I poured 100 g of whole wheat starter into a bowl, then thinned it out with about 50 ml of water and a pinch of salt, stirring until it was the consistency of pancake batter. The original recipe specified a bunch of scallions, but thanks to recent supply issues at the supermarket, I couldn’t get any. So I bought watercress instead, similarly spicy and crunchy and green, to bolster the end of the bunch of scallions I had in the fridge. I chopped them up together and mixed them in, then poured the mixture into the hot bacon fat. Cooked for about 5 minutes at medium heat on each side, then sliced up like a pizza and ate with a soy-based dipping sauce. A successful experiment, and one that I expect to become a regular fixture.

75 words

Friday night: Halloween! Trick-or-treating and dinner under the stars (pulled pork sandwiches, baked potato salad, green salad, festive whoopie pies). Saturday: farmer’s market, housecleaning, goofing off, Blackadder and burgers for dinner. Sunday: first outdoor Sunday lunch of the season (mushroom risotto, kale salad, and mixed-berry crumble with ice cream), and the realization that I need to develop a Sunday lunch strategy for when vegetarians are on the guest list. (Suggestions welcome!)

How was your weekend?

Summer Sundays

When we lived in England, we got into the habit of inviting people over for Sunday lunch. It’s a time-honored and universal tradition there, and is my first choice for hosting. There’s much more time for cooking on Sunday morning than there is on the average weeknight, and there’s much more time on Sunday afternoon for lingering over dessert and a cup of tea. If everything falls into place, you might even get some uninterrupted adult conversation while the assembled children a) wreak havoc or b) watch a video in another part of the house.

Maybe part of the reason Sunday lunch feels like such a natural option for me is that I grew up with it – except we called it Sunday dinner. Whatever the name, most Sunday middays found us gathered around the table, digging in to a traditional roast dinner; an unvarying rotation of roast beef, roast pork, roast chicken, or baked ham; all served with potatoes and peas, and followed by a homemade dessert.

The only time we didn’t follow this pattern was during summer vacation when, every Sunday after church, we would pack up the car with towels, buckets, sandwiches, the scotch cooler, and the eight of us, and head to the beach. My enduring memories of Sunday lunch in the summer are of ham sandwiches and carrot sticks in the car; peaches, chilly from the cooler, on the beach; and ice cream on the way home.

Maybe that’s why I still feel a bit flummoxed when I think about cooking a Sunday lunch in warm weather. My default Sunday lunch option is the typical roast dinner – large hunk of meat, roasted potatoes, starchy, filling dessert – that warms you up on a winter afternoon and leaves you ready to do little besides doze off on the couch. Unless you’re the hearty type that likes to go out for a brisk, chilly walk and work it off. (Full disclosure: I am not that type, despite DP’s best efforts these many years.)

As we enter our second summer in Australia with outdoor eating facilities at our disposal, I think I’ve hit upon a formula that works. I still base the menu around a large hunk of meat, because it’s easy and doesn’t have to be served piping hot. I replace the roast potatoes and vegetables with salads. And the dessert, instead of a crumble or a rich, heavy pudding, is something lighter and more seasonal – preferably a pavlova.

It still has that Sunday-lunch feel, and still provides opportunities to linger and chat – preferably outside, in the shade, on an afternoon that’s not so warm it’s uncomfortable, but warm enough that no one feels inclined to suggest a brisk walk.

Baked potato salad

I first got the idea of baking potatoes for salad from the fount of useful information and great ideas that is dinner with Julie; I find the texture and taste of salads made this way vastly preferable to the traditional boiled-potato method.

12 small to medium baking potatoes

~3 scallions/spring onions/shallots

2-3 Tbsp Greek yogurt

1 Tbsp mayonnaise

2-3 tsp Dijon mustard

salt

healthy sprinkle of cayenne pepper

Prepare the potatoes as you normally would for baking (ie wash, remove eyes, poke with a fork), then put in a hot oven (~200C/400F or thereabouts) until baked. (Time will vary, depending on size and oven, from 30 minutes to 2 hours; I judge that my potatoes are ready when the skin feels papery and the potato feels soft when I squeeze it.)

Chop the potatoes into bite-sized pieces while hot, and place in a large bowl. Finely chop the scallions into the bowl, then add the yogurt, mayonnaise, and mustard. Gently mix until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Season with salt and cayenne and mix again, tasting to check seasoning.

Serves 4 adults and 4 children, with a moderate amount of leftovers.

Unhealthy behaviors

Today my workmate M and I were discussing how ironic it is that there's nothing like attending a healthcare conference to undermine any healthy behaviors one might normally display. This was when we were on our way to lunch at 2pm, after a morning meeting that just wouldn't end. I did, however, follow this conversation up with a very healthy lunch: two poached eggs on sourdough toast, with a layer of sautéed asparagus, kale, and string beans in between. Then we ate some celebratory cakes (celebrating that we could eat all the cakes ourselves, rather than sharing with our respective daughters) - possibly nullifying the benefit of the healthy food. But possibly of great mental health benefit after all.

Braised pork loin

Speaking of disruptive innovation, here is something I would have automatically assumed was a bad idea - braising a pork loin? It has no fat! It's going to be the texture of shoe leather when it's done! But, since it originated from the authors of Dinner: A Love Story (the source of many a great recipe), I decided to throw caution to the wind and take a leap of faith. It was entirely justified.

I'm not going to provide a recipe as such, just a few pointers to success:

1. Sear the meat first.
2. Make sure it is partway immersed in liquid of some description (mine was a motley combination of blood orange juice, dijon mustard, maple syrup, ginger beer, and white wine - hence the "no recipe" caveat).
3. Cook it for at least two hours in a moderate oven. Longer is better.

It fell apart in shreds when I set out to carve it yesterday, and tasted amazingly good. It was even better tonight, when we had the leftovers in tacos. Lesson learned.

Sunday recap

Today the high temperature in Canberra was 77F/25C, and we had invited friends for lunch. So we re-christened our Midwestern patio furniture, now unpacked and adorning our Canberra backyard, with our first Sunday lunch al fresco in our new house. We started off in the kitchen with drinks, minty pea dip and pita chips while I finished prep, then moved outside for braised pork loin, pasta and green salads, homemade bread, and a nice bottle of NZ pinot gris. Later, after a suitable interval for digestion and chat, there was pavlova. It was very lovely and relaxing (aside from the inevitable momentary, surreal internal realization that it’s November 4 and I'm sitting outside in short sleeves – I wonder how long it takes before that stops happening?) and felt like a nice return to normal life after an awful lot of upheaval since we last lounged on those chairs.

Recipes to follow later; right now I’m going to go enjoy what’s left of my Sunday. Hope yours is equally delightful.

Kale salad

We have returned to something like a semblance of normality around here, following last week’s invasion of the earth movers. This was the result of our main waste pipe packing it in, and resulted in a total shutdown of our water and gas, our removal a hotel for three days, a backyard that still looks like a natural disaster, and a bill that has not yet arrived but is anticipated with dread.

To celebrate my gratitude at returning to my beloved domestic routine, I offer a salad that I have made at least once a week for the past year. After years of valiantly trying to feel enthusiastic about having a big, healthy salad for lunch (and failing when the option of a toastie was always just so much more appealing), I have discovered the wonders of a salad made with raw kale. These are threefold:

1. You can make it ahead of time—in fact it’s better that way—and it retains its crunch and snap. For days, even.
2. It actually fills me up. Unlike every other salad I have tried to make into lunch, which, unless I load it with so much cheese that its health benefits are rendered negligible, leaves me ravenous by 3pm.
3. Kale is way cheaper than spinach or most fancy lettuces, and you don’t need as much of it to fill you up.

I know a lot of people are skeptical about the idea of eating raw kale, but I have made this for dozens of guests in the past year, and served it without divulging any details. People go out of their way to compliment this salad, including self-confessed salad haters.

Toasted sandwiches

Just about this time, six years ago, I ate a sandwich that changed my life.

I realize that that is a sweeping and melodramatic statement to make about a sandwich, but I’m standing by it. Here is how it happened:

Once upon a time in my younger adulthood, I rarely ate sandwiches, other than tuna. I also had minimal experience of grilled cheese, other than as cheese piled on a slice of bread and run under the broiler until bubbly and crusty. These two facts seem unrelated, but are not.

While in Boston on a holiday visit, DP, Miss B, and I took a little road trip to visit my sister-in-law in western Massachusetts. While there, we made a stop at one of my favorite used bookstores in the world, The Montague Bookmill (also the possessor of the best slogan in the history of business, “Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find”), so I could spend the gift certificate my SIL had thoughtfully given me for Christmas. We had a good long browse for books, and also had lunch at the café.

I selected a sandwich—a sausage and cheese sandwich. The bread was crusty and spread with zesty mustard. The sausage was spicy and flavorful. The cheese was very sharp cheddar. And the whole thing had been cooked until the cheese was oozy and bubbling, elevating the combination from merely tasty to transcendental. The variety of flavors and textures in each bite was a revelation to me.

It doesn’t seem possible that that was my first experience of a toastie—I was well into my 30s at that point—but it was the first one that inspired me. Before I ate that sandwich, I had never made a grilled-cheese sandwich on the stovetop; never made a tuna melt; never combined anything with melted cheese between two slices of bread. Since I’ve had it, I would estimate that I’ve eaten at least one toastie a week without fail. Every week for the past six years. From a food perspective at least (and what perspective is more important?), I would define that as life-changing.

Sausage and cheddar toastie
I make my toasties using one slice of bread, cut in half, in order to satisfy my cravings while not pushing my calorie consumption into the stratosphere. I also use a vegetable slicer to pare off thin slices of cheese, so that I can get complete coverage and good melting.

2 Tbsp/30 g olive oil
1 slice good bread
dijon or stoneground mustard
cooked sausage (I generally use leftover medium-spicy Italian sausage)
the sharpest cheddar cheese you can find

Put the olive oil in a frying pan (I use my medium cast-iron) and put on the stove on medium heat. Spread the bread thoroughly with mustard on one side, then cut in half. Cover one half with thin slices of sausage, then cover the sausage with thin slices of cheese. Top with the other half-slice of bread and place in the now-hot oil. Weight the sandwich to press it together (since my beloved Canberra brick got lost in the move, I am back to using a smaller cast-iron skillet for this job). Cook the sandwich for about 3 minutes per side, or until brown and crispy on the outside and oozing cheese on the inside. Serve immediately, preferably accompanied by some good potato chips and homemade pickles.

Serves 1. Can be multiplied as necessary to feed any number of toastie fiends you happen to have hanging around.

Wayback Wednesday: Steak Salad

Two years ago, I was just back to Canberra from my organization's annual meeting in Singapore, enjoying burgeoning spring weather, and devouring this salad. This week, I'm preparing to head from KC to this year's annual meeting in Madrid, enjoying perfect fall weather...and wondering if I have any steak in the fridge?

Moving on

When I break away from the food as the primary topic of this blog, which I do from time to time (see below), it usually presents two dilemmas: 1) recognizing appropriate occasions for doing so and 2) figuring out how to transition back to focusing on food. I mean, one day I’m musing on the fragile and transitory nature of life, and a few days later I’m burbling on about, say, baked potatoes with no reference to what went before? Kind of jarring and not very credible, no?

Spinach salad

Aka look: more eggs! Because apparently that’s what I like to eat when the weather shows signs of spring.

Although hard-boiled eggs are not essential to the composition of a spinach salad, they can give it enough nutritional heft to make it count as a meal. And anything I can eat that contains something as healthy as spinach and serves as a vehicle for eggs and bacon? Lead me to it.

Breakfast burrito

Having time to cook a proper breakfast is one of the luxuries of working from home, although not one I take advantage of very often, if I'm honest. This, despite its name, is much more likely to appear on my plate at lunch, particularly on a day when I’ve had a productive morning and thus feel justified in spending a few extra minutes preparing a meal that will fuel an (I hope) equally productive afternoon.

Yorkshire pudding

Six fun facts about Yorkshire pudding

Did you know?

1. Yorkshire pudding and popovers are the same thing.
2. The same batter that makes either of these savory accompaniments can also be served as a sweet dish, as in a Dutch baby pancake.
3. The batter contains no leavener; it rises and gets puffy because of steam trapped inside the dough as it bakes, a method also used in choux pastry (to make profiteroles/cream puffs (sweet) or gougères (savory)).
4. It is most often served as part of a traditional English Sunday lunch, alongside roast beef, roast potatoes, and vegetables.
5. Tradition also holds that it was devised as a cheap way to fill people up so that they wouldn’t eat quite so much of the more expensive beef.
6. It is about 90% of my motivation for cooking roast beef.