Gourmet Weekly + Slow-roasted Tomatoes

I'm a sucker for cooking magazines, but I'm not usually a fan of e-newsletters. I love the convenience of the internet, but in the whirlwind of our technology-savvy (and perhaps somewhat addicted?) culture, there is something soothing about settling on the couch with a blanket, mug of tea, a bright, glossy magazine in your lap, and a quiet hour to read.

In my mind, however, there is one exception to the monotony of most e-newsletters. Gourmet Weekly provides just enough information to get you thinking (and learning) about fun new gadgets and ingredients, in addition to showcasing seasonal recipes you might otherwise have missed. And best of all, it's free!



Last week they provided links to a few fabulous tomato recipes, including Provencal Oven-roasted Tomato Sauce and Slow-roasted Tomatoes. I've already raved about the tomato sauce; this week, we discovered the salty-sweet, intense, sunny flavour of the oven-dried, slow-roasted tomatoes. They're positively addictive, and I'm amazed that we didn't eat them all the moment they were cool enough to handle!

For the most part, I'm not a huge fan of sun-dried tomatoes, but these are very different, and oh-so-much better. I used the small, sweet Orange Banana plum and the tiny yellow pear tomatoes from the farm, and I made a few batches with garlic and a few without.

One batch had the misfortune of turning into tomato-scented charcoal; I learned quickly that not all tomatoes will need the full 8 hours in the oven. I recommend starting with 4 hours and adding one-hour increments- tasting as you go- as you need them.

A few epicurious reviewers have had success freezing them, so I packed the chewy, moist slices between layers of waxed paper, sealed up the packets with sheets of freeze-tite, and into the freezer they went! I have a feeling that this will be a great way to transform the unremarkable hothouse tomatoes you find in most New England grocery stores during the winter.

Our friend A has gotten everyone hooked on the combination of sun dried tomatoes and smoked gouda, and I think these will be a perfect stand-in for the tomatoes at a winter celebration- New Years Eve, perhaps?

Miso Dressing

During my senior year of college, I was introduced to the joys of homemade miso soup by a Japanese roommate. She would add a cup of just-boiled water or dashi to a heaping tablespoon of moist, soft miso, and voila! you have a fast, tasty soup. If you've got either on hand, a bit of cubed tofu and small slices of kombu are nice additions. Either way, it tastes just like the miso soup you'd get at a Japanese restaurant.

While I love simple oil-and-vinegar salad dressings, most bottled dressings are too sweet for me. When I discovered this dressing and played with the recipe a bit, I hit upon the perfect balance of flavours, and L and I were hooked. The salty acidity is a perfect foil for salad vegetables, which are often sweet enough on their own.

We keep a container of miso and a jar of this dressing in our fridge at all times. Dinner guests seem to love it, and it encourages impromptu snacking on salads (rather than my beloved potatoes, which apparently aren't nearly as healthy as other vegetables). We've found that it goes particularly well with tomatoes and roughly grated carrots.



Miso Dressing

1 heaping tablespoon red miso (akamiso) or white miso (shiromiso)
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 one-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
pinch of sugar
2/3 cup rice vinegar
2/3 cup safflower oil (or any other neutral oil)

Put the miso, garlic, ginger and sugar into a food processor. Pulse a few times, until the garlic and ginger are finely chopped. Add the rice vinegar all at once and pulse until you have a well-mixed slurry. Turn on the processor and, with the processor running, add the safflower oil in a slow, steady stream until you have a thick emulsion.

If you don't have a food processor, you can mince the garlic, grate the ginger, and mix both with the miso and sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Add the rice vinegar and whisk to combine. Whisking like mad, add the safflower oil in a slow, steady stream until you have a thick emulsion.

Miso dressing can be stored in the refrigerator for at least a week.

Damson Plum and Sweet Crabapple Preserves

Our big box of plums and crabapples from Maine presented the perfect opportunity to try something new. So, as part of my current efforts to improve my preserving skills, I recently cooked up my very first jar of properly-canned preserves!

Before I started, I read through a slew of recipes and settled on a combination of the easiest basic techniques. I also made sure that at least one of my chosen fruits- the crabapples, in this case- has naturally high pectin levels, since pectin gives preserves their characteristic thick, gelled consistency.

This was my first solo attempt at this form of preserving, so I was aiming for a small, manageable batch... and I was ready to change my expectations (sauce for ice cream, anyone?) if anything went wrong. Happily, the preserves turned out beautifully thick, with a nicely balanced sweet-tart flavour.

Since we ended up with a little over a pint, I've been able to try the extra ladlefuls a few different ways without opening our one sealed jar.

I'm saving this jar of preserves for the dead of winter, when we're craving something a bit different. A welcome change from our usual grape jelly (L) and sweet orange marmalade (me), this is fabulous spread on toast or stirred into plain yogurt. I bet it would make a lovely layered cake filling, too.



Damson Plum and Sweet Crabapple Preserves
makes approximately 1 pint

1 1/2 pounds sweet crabapples*, cored and roughly chopped
1 pound damson plums, pitted
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)

Put the crabapples, plums and water into a heavy, nonreactive pot. Turn heat to low and simmer, uncovered and stirring often (check the bottom of the pot for sticking and/or burning), until the fruit is very soft and the mixture is thick and pulpy (approximately 2 hours).

Remove fruit mixture from heat and process, into a medium-sized bowl, with a food mill set with the smallest-holed plate. Process until you have a small amount of fairly dry solids remaining in the food mill (this should be mostly fruit peels). Discard these solids.

Put the fruit pulp back into the pot. Add lemon juice and sugar. Taste and correct for sugar, until preserves are as tart or sweet as you like.

Bring to a boil and let boil for 2 minutes. Pack into container(s), refrigerate, and consume within one week, or freeze and consume within one year.

If you wish to keep the preserves in your pantry, fill dry, sterilized jars (they should still be hot from the sterilization process) with the preserves and seal with sterilized caps. Process using a boiling water canner or pressure canner. Most guides say that properly canned preserves can be stored in a dark, cool place for up to a year.**

* You can use regular tart crabapples as well- just increase the sugar, to taste.

**NOTE: Canned foods can harbor toxic bacteria, mold and yeast. Please be sure that you follow safe canning practices (click here for a good start).

Tomatillo and Husk Cherry Salsa

Over the past few weeks, we've been harvesting pints of tomatillos as part of our farm share. We had a fast-growing bowl of them sitting in our 'fridge, because I'm annoyingly picky and have been looking everywhere for the perfect tomatillo salsa recipe.

When S and A visit (they're with us for the week), we usually eat obscene amounts of salsa, especially when everyone gets peckish around mid-afternoon. I like tomato-based salsas, but I've been itching to try something different, and I really wanted to use up the tomatillos!

My first attempt at tomatillo salsa (two years ago)- an experiment without guidance from a recipe- failed miserably. The salsa was lip-puckeringly tart, with no real flavour other than an overwhelming sourness. Not wanting to waste these tomatillos on further wild experimentation, I decided to look to the experts. As luck would have it, the September issue of Gourmet magazine arrived just before we left for the camping weekend, and the back-page column (aptly called The Last Touch) happened to include a recipe for tomatillo salsa! What perfect timing!



We had two pounds of tomatillos and I dislike cilantro, so I doubled the recipe and substituted parsley. We also have a small bowl of husk cherries that desperately need to be eaten; as they're related to tomatillos, I figured it couldn't hurt to add a handful (about 15, peeled and coarsely chopped) about 10 minutes into the simmering process.

Happily, the salsa came out fantastic! The husk cherries add an intruiguing fruity note, the lime juice and parsley are refreshing additions, and the secret to muting the characteristic tomatillo tartness seems to lie in the brief simmering. This is a nice departure from our usual salsa choices.

Basil Pesto

I have a long-standing love affair with pesto, and I'm sure that I am not alone. I first encountered the recipe- something a kid can easily make on her own- in my mother's copy of the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. It's a great solution you're looking for something delicious and quick that requires very little heat-up-the-kitchen-cooking.

I've changed the quantities of the original recipe quite a bit, as I usually do (you may have noticed that habit!). I prefer a thicker paste with less oil to sink to the bottom of the bowl, a stronger cheese and garlic tang, and whole pine nuts for a bit of crunch. Marcella adds butter to hers, and while I like the flavour, I can happily do without (in my pesto, at least).

L and I eat a lot of pesto during the summer months, especially July and August, when basil is at its peak and you see piles of it at farm stands and grocery shops. When I'm making a batch for dinner, I often make an extra batch or two to freeze for later use. The bright, sunny flavour is a welcome respite during our long New England winters.



Basil Pesto

2 cups firmly packed basil leaves, rinsed in a bowl of water and gently dried
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup pine nuts for grinding
1/4 cup pine nuts to add whole
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher or sea salt, plus more to taste (use a little less if you use fine salt)

1/2 cup freshly grated parmegiano-reggiano cheese
4 tablespoons freshly grated romano cheese

Put the basil, olive oil, 1/4 cup pine nuts, garlic and salt into a food processor and pulse a few times until you have a paste dotted with small, recognizable pieces of basil, but not so long that you reduce the mixture to a fine paste. You can also use a mortar and pestle (grind to a paste), or by hand with a sharp knife or mezzaluna (finely mince).

If you're making a batch for the freezer, stir in the remaining 1/4 cup pine nuts and stop here. Fill a freezer-safe container with the pesto and toss into the freezer; add the cheeses later, when the pesto has thawed. Containers of frozen pesto can be thawed in the refrigerator or in a bowl of warm water.

If you are using a food processor or knife, stir in the cheeses and remaining pine nuts by hand. Do not be tempted to add the cheeses using the food processor- the resulting texture will not be the same. If you are using a mortar and pestle, add the cheeses and grind until well incorporated.

When you're ready to use the pesto, taste and correct for salt. Toss with hot pasta and serve immediately.

Birthday Lemon Curd

L has never liked cakes. He does, however, love lemon curd above almost all other desserts. So, for his birthday a few weeks ago, in place of a birthday cake, I made a big bowl of lemon curd with surprisingly juicy lemons and eggs with vibrant yellow yolks from the Farmers' Market at Harvard.

Lemon curd is slow-cooked and eggy, much like a custard, with a bright, tangy citrus bite. Thick and prone to setting, it's perfect as a filling in tarts and cakes; it's easily spread with a knife, too, and is fabulous on scones and toast.

The summer we lived in Egypt (more on that later), I made two lemon curd tarts for L's surprise birthday dinner with friends. The lemon curd itself couldn't be a total surprise, though, because I needed help juicing the 80 or so tiny, dry, green limons (the closest thing to lemons we could find) it took to make two full batches.

Making the tart shells was an interesting process, to say the least. To make the pate brisee, I had to cut huge blocks of butter into what I hoped were American- sized sticks. I didn't have a rolling pin, so I used a Fayrouz malt soda can to roll out the dough. I realize now that I should have used a press-into-pan dough recipe! Blind baking the tart shells was trickier, as our small oven had a solid metal door and three heat settings: low flame, medium flame, and high flame. I decided to use the medium flame setting, and I was so nervous about the whole operation that I opened the oven every few minutes to make sure the shells weren't about to burn. For reasons entirely unrelated to skill, the tart shells came out beautifully flaky and tender.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the same beginner's luck with the lemon curd. Everything seemed fine at first, but after I'd poured it into the cooled shells and left the tarts on the counter to set, the lemon curd separated into a weepy, curdled mess. The culprit? I suspect it was a combination of the 115'F Egyptian summer heat and my fear of putting the loose tarts into the fridge before they'd had time to set. I carefully scooped the lemon curd back into the saucepan, cooked it a bit longer, poured it back into the tart shells, cleaned up the edges as best I could, and put the tarts directly into the fridge. Thankfully, they set beautifully the second time.

This recipe comes directly from L's mom, who makes gorgeous, highly-addictive lemon curd tarts. She has infinite patience and great skill when it comes to baking, and she loves making tiny desserts, so she often makes hundreds of bite-sized, delicate tartlets. In order to make this batch of lemon curd last a bit longer, and to preserve my sanity, I poured the lemon curd into a bowl and we ate it, spread thick, on crusty baguettes and sweet, eggy challah. We didn't miss the birthday cake at all.



Lemon Curd
Enough for one medium-sized tart

5 large egg yolks, beaten
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice, squeezed from room temperature lemons
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons grated lemon rind

Strain the beaten egg yolks through a sieve into a small (1-2 quarts) heavy saucepan. Add the sugar and lemon juice, stir to combine, and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 10-12 minutes. The mixture will start to thicken a bit after about 8 minutes.

Stir in the butter, a piece at a time (let each piece melt before you add the next), until fully incorporated. Stir in the rind. Let cool completely. Pour into a baked tart shell, or cover the surface with plastic wrap, store in the fridge, and use as a spread for toast.

Note: If your eggs tend to scramble, you can make this in a double boiler set over barely simmering water.

Chimichurri

Chimichurri is an Argentinian marinade and sauce that, traditionally speaking, accompanies grilled beef. I first tasted it at Tango, a fabulous Argentinian restaurant in Arlington. They have bottles of it on each table, and you are encouraged to pour it liberally on the vast array of beautifully grilled meats on their menu (if you go to Tango, try the flank steak- it's fabulously juicy and flavourful).

From what I've read, this will sound blasphemous to purists, but I'm going to say it anyway: chimichurri is good- really, really good- on just about anything!

We recently hot-smoked a pork loin for a dinner with friends, and I decided that chimichurri would be a fabulous complement to the smoky, tender meat. I naïvely thought it would be easy to find a good, straightforward recipe. It turns out that finding chimichurri recipes is easy... but deciding which one to use is not so simple!

As with many recipes, it seems, there are numerous debates as to what makes up the authentic version. Cilantro? Hot pepper? Tomatoes? Bell peppers? Carrots? The debates are numerous, and I quickly found myself lost in a sea of recipes. In the end, I decided that I should be more adventurous, and that I really didn't want carrots in my chimichurri.

I started with the basic common-thread ingredients: olive oil, vinegar, parsley, oregano, garlic and salt. Because L and I both love strong, spicy flavours, I added a few things I saw in the simplest versions: onion, lemon juice and spicy pepper. I pulsed everything briefly in the food processor, asked our friends to taste and review, adjusted a few things, pulsed again, and pretty soon ended up with a mixture that everyone liked. It turned out great the first day, but the leftovers were even better the second day.

Add this to your make-ahead list, or keep a jar of it in the fridge (if you're as addicted as we are), and you'll have one less thing to worry about at meal time.



Chimichurri
makes approximately 2 cups

1 large bunch flat leaf parsley
2 large or 4 small stalks oregano, leaves reserved and stems discarded
5-8 cloves garlic (start with 5)
1/2 of one medium red onion
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar (start with 2)
juice of 1 lemon, plus more to taste
1-2 teaspoons sea salt (start with 1), plus more to taste
1 small spicy pepper, stem removed (optional)

Put all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until you have a thick paste. If you don't have a food processor, mince the herbs, onion, garlic and spicy pepper as finely as you can, then stir in the liquid ingredients. Taste and correct for vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, and salt- you're aiming for a bold, savoury flavour here, but don't forget that chimichurri will intensify as it sits.

If possible, let the chimichurri sit for at least one hour before serving.

UPDATE: I recently experimented a bit and made this with:

lime juice instead of lemon
thyme instead of oregano
small, newly harvested summer onions instead of red onion

It was just as good! We also discovered that, like pesto, chimichurri freezes really well.

Macerated Red Onions

I found this recipe in one of my favourite cookbooks- Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer. We eat a lot of onions, both raw and cooked, so I was immediately drawn to this half-pickled, half-macerated alternative. I now keep a jar of these with the other condiments in our refrigerator.

When you macerate the onions in the oil-vinegar mix, they turn a vivid translucent cerise and lose their sulfury-acrid bite. I've changed the oil and vinegar quantities a bit because I like a stronger acid kick, but the result is the same.

These are perfect in sandwiches and spooned over anything grilled. Add them with their liquid to salads, perhaps with a splash of fresh lemon juice, and you'll have the only dressing you need.



Macerated Red Onions

1 medium red onion, halved widthwise and sliced as thin as possible
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup good quality red wine vinegar

Mix all ingredients in a shallow nonreactive (glass or ceramic) bowl and allow to sit for at least two hours before using. Onions can be kept covered, in an airtight container, in the refrigerator.