Recipe: Quick Roast Broccoli

Broccoli for many people is really a take it or leave it kind of vegetable, but it's one you should be eating more of. It's pretty much nature's little miracle of avoiding all those nasty diseases Americans seem to have a copyright on, such as heart disease and cancer related to our terrible diet. Oh and did I mention its got about twice the vitamin C of an orange?

Unfortunately, most of the time its vapid and uninspired, because someone left it in the steamer 30 seconds longer than they should have. It's surprisingly unforgiving; You either need to watch it like a hawk, or blanch it and then give it a quick saute in something with some taste. I wanted a more hands off approach, that would avoid any boiling (which reduces the anti-cancer and DNA repairing compounds), give you some time flexibility, and still let you make a dish with complex and well developed flavors.

Garlic and lemon are a perfect pair for these little green flowers, but I wanted these flavors spread evenly all over the florets, and to have a chance to really develop. A quick toss in olive oil and lemon (while delicious) before a blast in the oven wasn't gonna cut it.

The key here is to once again tap our friend fat, and use him to bring us some flavor that would otherwise be unavailable to us. As I have said before, there are these wonderful little flavor molecules all around us, just waiting to be discovered. Simmering the garlic and thin slices of lemon breaks down the fat soluble flavor molecules in the garlic and lemon (plus the rind of the lemon, which is much more flavorful than the juice alone).


For 2 heads of broccoli, you'll need the juice of half a lemon, the other half you slice very thin, 3 cloves of garlic minced, and 3 good glugs of olive oil.

Set the oven at 400.

Trim and wash your broccoli, cutting it into long spears.

Lightly saute the garlic and lemon slices in the oil, just 2-3 minutes, DO NOT let the garlic brown.

In a roasting pan, put broccoli, sprinkle with salt, toss in infused olive oil, and cook for 15-20 minutes, tossing halfway through.

Sprinkle with lemon juice and fresh ground pepper, serve immediately.

Recipe: Stuffed squash blossoms with ricotta, lemon zest and basil.

In my ongoing effort to please my internist, and get her to stop muttering things like "impending gout" and other pesky phrases, I am trying to incorporate more vegetables in my life. I was meandering around, thinking of what to serve my guests at an upcoming dinner party, and was pleasantly surprised come across a box of flowers I could eat.

This solved two of my three quandaries.
1: It was not meat or alcohol, so it must be a vegetable.
2: It looks really good and is sure to impress my guests.
Now for problem #3, how to make it taste good. The answer of course, is to stuff it with cheese, because cheese is amazing. Done.

Surprisingly easy to make, a stuffed squash blossom arriving on someone's plate makes you an instant gastronomic hero. Seriously. The key is once you stuff them, casually lay them out as part of your "prep work". Everyone will assume you're Anthony Bourdain, and they haven't even tasted anything yet. Genius.

However, make sure you have practiced cooking one before everyone shows up, or you run the risk of screwing things up in front of an audience.


I'd say that went well...


You need:
Squash blossoms (try to use them within 2 days of purchase)
Ricotta cheese
Parmigiana, or any salty hard cheese (pecorino, cotija, etc).
1 egg
A lemon
Fresh Basil (about 10-12 good sized leaves)
Salt and pepper
Some warm tomato sauce (either home made or your favorite jarred version, I like Rao's Vodka sauce)

First GENTLY wash the blossoms by hand. Be careful, they are fragile and fast running water can tear them. You need to rinse the insides too, these things grew in a field after all. Then trim the stems off and set aside to dry.

You can cut the stem right at the flower's base. Pictured here is how NOT to do it.

Next, finely chop your basil: Wrap all the leaves up together and cut it like a teeny green carrot, this chiffonades it, then you chop those little ribbons widthwise, done.

Zest your lemon.

Grate up a good handful of the hard cheese, and mix into the ricotta (about half of a big tub) with the zest and basil. Add salt and pepper to taste, or add more grated cheese (this effectively adds salt). It should look like this:


Using a spoon, carefully fill the flowers. Again, they are delicate (as flowers should be) so be careful. Just fill them until the cheese reaches the top of the green section. Any leftover filling is delicious on toast.


Whisk up your egg, and dip the blossom in it (focusing on the petals). You don't want to try and make a batter here, you simply need to "glue" the petals shut. Give them a gentle twist to seal them.

Over medium heat, sautee gently in a little butter. Use a very thin spatula, and try not to mess with them to much. You'll get a nice browning of the egg, if some cheese leaks out you'll have some delicious fried bits of it. Top with some tomato sauce and viola.

The plate on the right was the original poster boy, but someone started eating it while I was waiting for the camera app to start up on my iPhone. Yes they are that good.

This concludes Gastroliaison's recipe for stuffed squash blossoms with ricotta, lemon zest and basil.

Recipe: Sage brown butter polenta with ratatouille, sauteed spinach and goat cheese.

Note the artistic use of depth of field (pretentious for poorly focused iPhone pic).

I love polenta, its easy and quick to make, and can be created in a variety of consistencies to suit whatever your needs are. It captures flavors really well, in perfect juxtaposition to my poor image capturing skills.

Shopping
Pre-cooked polenta (its in a tube)
Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Red Onion
Bell Pepper (any color, orange is fun)
Mushrooms
Spinach
Can of roasted tomatoes
Garlic
Fresh Sage
Fresh Thyme

Butter
Goat Cheese

I know, it seems so wrong, but trust me, it gets better.

The polenta is easiest to work with if you cut it up and microwave it for 2 minutes (this will soften it).
Or you can gently heat it in a pan.

In this little reaction, we are using the butter like a fat delivery man.

Now, fry those sage leaves in a lot of butter, delicious. You see, there are tons of these complex fat soluable flavor compounds to be found all around us, but you need to use fat to release them. So there are certain flavors in that sage that your tongue would never have the joy of discovering unless you add some fat, this is why fat makes things taste so good.

Let it brown, its ok, medium high heat.

Remove your crispy sage leaves (save for garnish) and pour the butter into the polenta and mix. Add salt and fresh ground pepper.

At this point, the polenta will be really "tight". Simply add hot water in small increments and stir until it reaches your desired consistency. Some people like it firm, like mashed potatoes, others creamy, like grits. Cover and set aside.

Ratatouille is so simple to do, and really you can use whatever veggies you have on hand. The key is consistent cut sizes and timing.

Basically keep each veggie group the same size. So all your onion slices are about the same thickness, the mushrooms are the same size cut as each other etc. The other thing is to add the items according to how long they take to cook. Use your judgment here, and if you mess up it's still delicious.

Use a pan with enough room for everything. My first choice is a big dutch oven. My last choice is an overcrowded saute pan like the one I used here.

Throw down a little butter, saute some diced garlic until fragrant (NOT BROWNED) and start with the mushrooms, as they have a ton of water to release. When they are done, toss in the peppers, let 'em go for a few, then onions. Squash should go last.

Throw in the can of tomatoes, a few sprigs of fresh thyme, salt, simmer gently until all is done. Do not overcook or else it all gets mushy. Done. Put it in a bowl.

Quickly saute some spinach with a little olive oil and garlic. It takes like 30 seconds.

Polenta down first, then ratatouille, then spinach. Crumble some goat cheese on top, garnish with the crispy sage leaves. Eat it. Be amazed you actually don't miss meat.

This concludes Gastroliaison's recipe for sage brown butter polenta.

Recipie: Grilled Snow Peas

Want to impress your better half? Take them to a farmers market on the weekend.
Then cook for them.

Ahhh, summer. It means so many things my stomach. Drinking outside, cooking outside, shopping outside, eating outside, wait I see a theme. So in my constant effort to combine as many of the above actions as possible, I made a trip to my local farmers market.

Summer also means peas are nice and fresh up here in the N.E. because they're in season. Season? Yes, even though the giant industrial food machine has done its best to one up mother nature and erase the whole idea of foods growing during a certain time of the year thing, it still exists.

Today we all live in a world where one can have any type of produce at any time of the year. I think its a little out of control. I mean really, do you honestly think it's responsible to put peas on a jet in Guatemala and fly them to your local supermarket? That makes about as much sense as offering massive tax breaks on ridiculously inefficient, obscenely heavy vehicles that in the event of an accident tend to kill anyone not driving one. Oh, wait...

I love hummers too you know...

Lets get a little local
Buying locally is a good idea, it reduces the amount of energy used to get the food to your plate. A Boeing 727 cargo jet burns around 1250 gallons per hour of flight. More on take off, landing, idling, but let's not split hairs. The flight from Guatemala is about 4.5 hours so that's 5625 gallons of super refined, JA-1 aviation fuel used, just in the air. There's lots of trucks involved too, loading of the airplane, moving of containers, that's a lot of energy for a pea, huh?

Waiting for things to be in season increases your appreciation of them. It can also create more responsible practices by our food producers. If you don't demand beef all year round and wait until the winter, producers might just let them eat grass all summer. That would be good for the planet, and your taste-buds.


Gastroliaison's Grilled Snow Peas
The snow pea is an immature pea. Picked early, its pods are tender and delicious. Get nice green ones that snap crisply when you break them. Wash them and eat them right away, they won't last more than 2-3 days in the fridge (in a plastic bag).

Throw them on a hot hot grill, about 3 minutes per side till they get nice charred spots on them.

Sprinkle with a nice sea salt, like fleur de sel, and viola!