Stuffed Zucchinis with Pork, Ramp Greens, Asiago, Crème Fraîche and Lemon Zest

zucchini-stuffed-plated

What defines a “comfort” dish?  Sentimentality, based on good home cooking? Texture? Ingredients? Process?  Rustic presentation? I can’t quite put my finger on it.  This particular dish qualifies, but perhaps anything with the word “stuffed” in its name stacks the deck a little too steeply in its favor.  It is interesting how a word so derogative when applied to humans becomes so delightful when applied to food.

As I mentioned the other day, Gourmet Worrier’s recipe for Qarabaghli mimli bil-laham caught my eye. I ran with the concept, and created my own version, which combines ground pork shoulder, some nicely smoked bacon, aged asiago cheese, breadcrumbs, crème fraîche… oh nevermind, the recipe is below the fold!

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An Early Taste of Summer

The peach blossoms are barely out, but weather’s whim delivered 80+ degree sunny days this weekend. It felt like a whiplash jolt into summer, and I had to keep on reminding my optimistic brain that the local produce was still some time away.  Not that I am complaining — I fired up the grill and we ate like kings.

grill-collage

I had thought that the re-emergence of warm weather would put me in a vegetarian mood, harkening back to those wonderful Food Blogga salads from last year.  That was before I made a stop into my favorite butcher, Fleishers.  So much for being leaf-eaters. We devolved into fully fledged T-Rex.

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Olney’s Simple French Food; Recipe Links 4-23-09

olney

“Even vegetarians expend most of their ingenuity trying to destroy the vegetableness of the poor fresh things, welding them into horrible imitations of meat dishes in pathetic compensation for self-imposed deprivation.”
— Richard Olney on cooking vegetables, Simple French Food

Do you find that the longer it takes you to read a book, the harder it becomes to pick it up and start?  Some of you might have noticed that I’ve been referencing Richard Olney a lot recently. The truth is I’ve had his book Simple French Food for almost 15 years, collecting dust on my bookshelves all this time. I picked it up right after college when I decided to learn to cook, out of a sense of associated loyalty. Olney and my father (an editor) worked together on the Time Life Good Cook series, but I was very young at the time and did not meet him.  So novice-me bought the book and was intimidated right off the bat.  I scurried back to the familiarity and ease of my Julia Child, and kept this one on the shelves.

Fast forward to a month ago, when I picked it up in earnest. What a change! All of a sudden, it wasn’t scary anymore.  Quite the contrary, to the older, more experienced me, this book is brilliant, accessible and often funny.  A book like this does not go out of style.  I read it basically cover to cover, and was quite inspired.  I like that Olney often explains his reasoning and purpose behind a decision, rather than just dumping out some ingredients and assembly instructions. Verdict: an oldie but very goodie.

P.S. Another book of Olney’s that I love, and which has not collected so much unjustified dust, is Lulu’s Provençal Table.

It has been way too long since I posted some recipe links, though my list has been stacking up. Here are a few from the pile that inspired me:

Ramp and Mushroom Risotto

risotto-mushroom

Every once in a while, you read amusing stories about the tension and strife that ensue when cooking in your mother’s kitchen. The hovering. The unsought advice. The skeptical brow. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, I have no such stories from this recent dinner. In the making of this ramp and mushroom risotto, I had free reign. Perhaps it is because I am male, or perhaps it is simply the nature of my mom, but there was no drama to rivet this tale.

I think we got most of the mother-child conflict out of our systems when I was in high school and needed heavy pushing to study and get into a good college. Her obstinate determination at that task exceeded even my own innate and not-insubstantial stubbornness. In the end, her mission was accomplished, for which I am eternally grateful.

Turning the tables and making her a great meal is the least I can do. This risotto, while not innovative in the slightest, was particularly good for three reasons: a homemade vegetable broth made with patience, the use of the last of my ramps, and a mix of porcini, shiitake and oyster mushrooms.

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Prosciutto-wrapped figs, arugula and goat cheese salad

fig-salad

I learned to cook from two women: my mother, and Julia Child.  The latter was from a book, but nothing beat looking over my mother’s shoulder and pestering her with questions.  This occurred shortly after I graduated from college, moved to Austin, and quickly realized that the only way I could afford decent food was to make it myself. It did not take many canned soup evenings to tenderize my brain into an eager state to learn.

When we traveled down to Washington D.C. this past weekend, I had a chance to cook in my mother’s kitchen and tried to make the most of it as time permitted.  The dinner was not complex, but the results were successful: this salad followed by a ramp and mushroom risotto (posting next).  This post is about the salad: simmering dried turkish figs with thyme, wrapping them with prosciutto, and serving on a bed of arugula, walnuts and goat cheese with a lemon/olive oil dressing. At the bottom of the post, I’ve also included some photographs taken while walking around Georgetown.

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Ramps, Ramps, and Ramp Fritters

ramps-shadow

Easter Sunday was a bit unusual for me this year.  I spent the morning with family, but ever-patient Lisl gave me special dispensation to spend the afternoon tromping around the woods with a bunch of other food bloggers collecting wild ramps, fiddleheads, stinging nettles, wild garlic, and more.  This outing was organized by Marc of No Recipes (who has a full write-up of the event and resulting menu on his blog, along with some great photos) and Jonathan of Lab 24/7.

ramps-forage-collage(Clockwise from top-left: ramps; stinging nettles; fiddleheads; non-edible but pretty flowers)

I now understand the special appreciation people have for ramps.  Douse them in olive oil and sea salt and toss under the broiler for a few moments, and the results will make you go weak in the knees.  Since Sunday, I have also eaten pickled ramps, sauteed ramps with the drippings from a roast chicken, made ramp fritters (recipe below), and later this week will be making a ramp risotto.  One has to strike when the iron is hot!

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Ruhlman Rebuttal

I like Michael Ruhlman. Hell, I recently bought two of his books.  However, I struggled with a recent Ruhlman blog post on the subject of food writing, and the applause in the comments. I am going to bypass the truisms (work hard, learn to write well, write often, write for an audience beyond yourself, don’t expect riches) and focus on the quotes that tripped me up, which lead each paragraph below in italics:

  • “Writing is not about the ‘me,’ it’s about the ‘not me.'” —  A pithy statement for sure, but riddled with confusion.  If one is talking about being mindful of the reader, then there is no argument from me, especially since much of food writing is a craft rather than an art. If one is talking about content, then the line between the two can get rather blurry.  Take Molly Wizenberg’s recent success, A Homemade Life.  I do not see how one can call this lovely book “not-me” without some philosophical pretzel-twists.  The same goes for cookbooks. Many authors, whether Bertolli in Cooking by Hand or Olney in Simple French Food, are not afraid to let the “me” shine through.  Actually, the “me” brings their books to life.
  • “It’s my belief  that there are too many cookbooks out there already and the unnecessary ones prevent the good ones from being seen.” — Dear Michael Ruhlman, how does someone who just published a new cookbook say such a thing?  And could you not make the same statement about any creative output?  It lays the foundation for a marvelously distopian setting: gothic street corner, hunkered masses, loudspeaker blaring: “This is a public service announcement to all artists, authors, producers and entertainers.  Cease and desist.  You are distracting the public from the True Quality.  If you are True Quality, you will know it because Enlightened Management will tell you that you are True Quality. Have an Obedient Day.”
  • “Blogs, of course, are still so new it’s hard to predict what they will look like in 10 years and who will be making money from them.  And, unlike any other form of engaging writing, they are almost always about the ‘me.'” — Back to the me/not-me issue.  Engaging writing?  I would argue that a huge amount of fiction is actually “me” highly disguised as “not-me” (and sometimes not so highly).  Nor do I think this surprising when many authors follow the advice “write what you know.”  Actually, I am coming to the conclusion that the terms me/not-me must mean different things to Michael Ruhlman and me, er wait, I mean “not-me”, or is that “him who is I”?
  • “Bottom line: don’t write if you can help it, and don’t write expecting to make money.  The only really good reason to write is because you have to.” — and hello curmudgeon Ruhlman!  I will grant that the odds are against having financial success as a writer (or most forms of creative expression). The odds are not impossible but they are tough.  I also have to grant that Ruhlman is probably talking about writing for a living, but I just cannot let such a sweeping statement go by.  The only good reason to write?! What stuff! Write if you love to! Write if you are determined to! Write if you want to improve your mind! Write if you want to express yourself! Write because you have the freedom to do so, and revel in that freedom! It has not always been so.

In the end, I suspect that some of Ruhlman’s comments are the result of people looking for shortcuts in a very tough, competitive, grueling profession (albeit not the only profession to deserve those descriptors).  Still, I prefer to applaud attempts to embrace the artistic.  A dose of realism is possible without trying to stamp a tender sapling into the ground.

Rustic Provencal Galette; the new site

Before diving into the recipe, we want to welcome you all to the new home of Constables Larder.  Thank you for joining us here, and please let us know what you think. If you are an RSS subscriber to the old blog, please unsubscribe that one and sign up here (although if you are seeing this post, it means it’s working automatically, miracle of miracles).

Spring is finally starting to emerge, and my palette is very Mediterranean-focused. Last weekend, this manifested in the form of a galette — essentially an onion tart with the addition of zucchini, olives, garlic, and tomatoes.  Instead of a pâte brisée, I decided to try a Provençal pastry (pâte à l’huile d’olive) which Richard Olney describes in Simple French Food (my new flame). It is easy to make, quite tasty, and has a rustic personality and texture.

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Potatoes In Beer

This is a simple yet surprisingly sophisticated dish from Richard Olney’s Simple French Food. I’ve long been a fan of making scalloped potatoes with milk and/or cream. The use of beer makes the dish a little less rich, which can be a good thing, yet still flavorful, and the onions add a sophistication that I really enjoyed.

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Pork Shoulder Braised with Ginger, Fennel, and Citrus

Every once in a while, I have to jump up and down waving my hands, hoping that some of you try a particular dish. This is one of those times. Alas for the vegetarians. Ginger, fennel, soy sauce, garlic, lime, orange, pork and a low-slow braise, oh my! I never knew how well ginger and fennel go together.

The meal began when I made another pilgrimage to Fleishers, the exquisite butcher in Kingston NY, and walked away with a bunch of goodies including a 3lb berkshire pork shoulder. As everyone knows, great ingredients make great meals, and berkshire pork is far-and-away superior to the overly-lean pork you get in American supermarkets. I like working with bone-in cuts; flavor is better and I like the texture that comes with gently shredding the meat away from the fat and bone at the end.

Wanting to try a new flavor profile with the pork, I turned to the Internets and discovered an interesting recipe on Epicurious. I didn’t really follow the recipe’s methods, but the flavor inspiration was fantastic. The braised fennel was transported some something entirely new.

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