Glazed onions au soleil levant

In Alexandria, Egypt, relatives of Claudia Roden served all kinds of pickled vegetables as appetizers. I'd have loved to be a guest in the fifties between cool white-washed walls at sunset. Between Françoise Bernard for French cooking and Claudia Roden for Jewish cooking, I borrow from both, and then follow Roden's timing - 15 minutes extra to 30 minutes of cooking. I had a few shallots, although far better it would be to prepare smaller white onions.

Glazed onions au soleil levant

Small white onions or shallots

Roden:
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons olive oil
lemon juice

Françoise Bernard:
50 cl water
40 g butter
1 teaspoon powdered sugar

Combine olive oil and sugar, heat, add the onions, braise them over low-moderate heat with the lid on for 30 minutes. I added a knob of butter and a splash of water.

Remove the lid, briefly turn up the heat, then lower, add the lemon juice, and let the sauce reduce to a thicker brown mixture in 15 minutes.

Taste, and serve hot or cold. If unused as appetizer, use in an omelet!

Picture: onions au soleil levant.

Hard times: brandade with grey shrimp and cauliflower

It's hot, but not so hot that I don't crave some potatoes. I don't often eat potatoes, but potatoes are currently a craving. Brandade, usually with salt cod and potatoes, is a poor man's dish. Geert Van der Bruggen has a version with some of our goodies: cauliflower, white fish, grey shrimp. Last week I had a simple evening meal of oven-baked potato and cauliflower. That too might have easily passed for a poor man's dish.

Brandade with grey shrimp and cauliflower

By Geert Van der Bruggen, in: Velt zine De seizoenen, No. 4, 2010, p. 21.

Serves 4

200 g fillet of white fish (i.c. plaice, the only MSC-labeled* fish I could lay hands on)
100 g freshly shelled grey shrimp
500 g potatoes
8 slices of dried bacon
1 small cauliflower
2 eggs
fresh chives
1 dl sour cream
juice of 1/2 lemon
olive oil
pepper, salt

*MSC: Marine Stewardship Council. A must in your vocabulary when it comes to fish.

Preheat oven at 140 °C.

Peel potatoes, cut them and boil them in salted water.

Season fish with salt and pepper, sprinkle with olive oil and put in the oven for 2 minutes (I let it in the oven somewhat longer-7 minutes)

Softly boil the eggs and peel them.

Drain cooked potatoes, let them dry, then mash. Add eggs, fish, chopped chives (keep some chives for decoration). Finish the brandade with sour cream, shrimp, lemon juice, pepper.
Taste; finish with a bit of olive oil.

Put the brandade onto plates, and sprinkle with very finely cut raw cauliflower. Put some dried bacon on top, and decorate with some chives.

My variations:
I used MSC-approved white fish (plaice)
I skipped the dried bacon and the sour cream.
I steamed the cauliflower to a translucent green al dente perfection: courtesy of de Leonie de Sounin's Magic in Herbs, see my post on the perfect cauliflower cooking method here.
For taste, I added some argan oil and chipotle chilli powder (my current fave in the spice rack)

Stop worrying about your finances and eat!

Fresh berries in a tart

During more than seven days of blazing sun I checked them everyday by eating some. They were turning dark and big enough to let tartness become sweetness: the antioxidant bombs in my garden. I was nervous. I picked my first crop of berries. Would I be able to do the right thing to do these riches justice?

At Marmiton.org, in a Tarte aux cassis with a pâte brisée crust, the filling consisted of:

400 g berries
3 egg yolks
100 g sugar
25 g flour
and 200 g whipped cream.

Never one to obey, I turned the filling into this:

2 egg yolks
40 g ground almonds
78 g agave syrup
and 250 g white cottage cheese.
And I simply used more berries (560 g).
Fresh berries in a tart

Make the crust (250 g flour, 10 cl cold water, 125 g butter). Put it in the baking tin. Preheat oven at 180 °C.

Pick berries: yostaberry, black currant (cassis/ribes niger or nigrum), and red currant. Combine them with the ingredients serving as filling.

Bake for 35 minutes.

Mission accomplished: a filling that did justice. An extremely fresh, tart berry taste.

Fine finger food in honor of a Great Ocean

There's no time in the Northern hemisphere I like better than this: the countdown to June 21. Before this, all of nature is thriving, moving to and reaching its most upward position. I'm eagerly enjoying this time, but also feeling pangs of regret that after solstice days are shortening and everything is slowly creeping downhill again.

Nothing better than some finger food to chase that thought, to prepare one day in advance and to take to a beach slightly cooled the next day or to a porch at sunset. It's a vegetable tart without a crust that I've described before (here), but last night I made it without crust and with variations. Use any vegetable, seasoning, flour and cheese of choice.

Crustless Leek Tart, with variations - Original recipe by Lucrèce Roegiers of Yggdrasil

6 leeks (I only had 4)
olive oil,
salt, pepper
dry herbs and spices of choice
50 g quinoa flour (variation) (or any type of flour, but use something gluten free for a change)
2-3 tablespoons breadcrumbs
3 beaten eggs
200 g fresh goat cheese (variation)
a few nibbles of grated young pecorino (variation)

Preheat the oven at 180 °C.

Stew the vegetables in some olive oil over moderate heat together with spices and herbs, (limited) salt and pepper, until tender. Remove from the heat.

Add the flour and bread crumbs to the vegetables, mix well, add the eggs mix well, and add the goat cheese and other cheese with a fork. Move mixture to buttered round tart tin.

Bake for 30 minutes, let cool.

This is so good cold the next day! Perfect finger food in honor of a Great Ocean.

Remarks:
I did prefer it with the 50g semolina flour that I used last time
I copied a trick from Joanna at Joanna's Food that I have to use with crusts: I sprinkled some oatmeal flakes on the bottom. Joanna has several fine crust recipes that are very worthwhile.
She lists them again in her new blog An English Kitchen.
Yep, the veggie tart is here to stay all summer.

Two omelettes

Forget the ocean, though it's near. Forget the pizzazz of Silicon Valley. Sunny dust settles in the tiny farmer's town of Pescadero. The American flag stands exceptionally tall. At Duarte's Tavern, locals greet each other, greet the owners and have a second breakfast.
It's not yet eleven and too early for artichoke soup, though the kitchen is full of Spanish clatter. Pans sizzling and bread ovens warming up. I ordered the Mexican omelette: a perfectly folded thin omelette enveloping one long green pepper.
When I read Jason Epstein's account of making omelettes au bain marie, and over low heat, Duarte's omelette sprang to my mind. And when a friend gave me some very fresh eggs, I tried my hand at it.
As I prepared it without butter, my first attempt still ended up as scrambled eggs.
At Duarte's I had room left for Olallieberry pie, freshly baked and still hot. Thanks, Tea and Cookies, for luring me to the delights of Northern California!

The Most Simple and Fortifying Soup in the Whole Wide World

Dark Bread Soup, by R. Müller, in Gesund und leistungsfähig durch richtige Ernährung Part 2 (Bern, Sonnseitig leben, 1974) see previous posts labelled "The Swiss guy", is a secret weapon of mass fortification whenever there aren't a bunch of vegetables in the house. Without ado.

Dark Bread Soup

A few slices of dark bread
butter
salt, pepper, nutmeg
1 liter water
1 onion
a few cloves
a glass of red or white wine
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons cream

Lighly fry the bread in butter in a pan. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg.

Add the water, the onion with cloves pegged to it, and let this simmer for 30 minutes.

Pass the soup through the mill, add the wine, bring to a boil again, mix in the egg yolk and the cream while stirring, and serve as quickly as possible.

Note: I did not add wine, nor did I pass the soup through the mill, but through a sieve. At the end of the first boiling time, I added the yolk, no cream. I brought again to a brief boil, and served the soup. Excellent (one can taste the bread) and fortifying.