(Another) Spring Salad

At first glance, a spring of unprecedented rain and cool temperatures seems cruel. But for a salad fiend like myself, it’s been a boon.  The lettuce hasn’t bolted! My peas are producing like nobody’s business, and everything is so luscious and green. (Can you tell I’m looking for the silver lining here?)

Last week I spontaneously created this salad using asparagus that I bought at a roadside stand near Scappoose, paired with arugula, lettuce, peas, and radish from our garden bed. I topped it with one of my favorite and most affordable cheeses, ricotta salata, a sprinkling of chopped mint and a vinaigrette featuring minced preserved Meyer lemon.

WOW! The lemon and mint were delicious together, and I highly recommend ricotta salata as an alternative to feta – its strong, salty flavor stands up nicely to tangy a vinaigrette.

I hope this little salad ditty inspires you to make the most of our cool spring greens.

Easy Go-To Dinner

This spring we’ve been busy, busy, busy. We put in new raised beds on our side yard and built a stone retaining wall. Needless to say, my weekends have been stacked with manual labor and not much cooking. The good news is that the garden is lush (thanks to all this spring rain) and we’ve been harvesting armfuls of arugula, lettuce and spinach.

Our local farmers’ market has several purveyors of fresh eggs. One of my favorite vendors is Terra Vita farm. I am not exaggerating when I say they have the most delicious eggs I’ve ever eaten. The yolks are an eye-popping orange and they are so flavorful and rich, it’s crazy. Crazy, I tell you!

Anyhow…as an homage to their deliciousness, I’ve been whipping up this go-to dinner. It’s simple, nutritious and lip-smacking good.  Basically, it’s a poached egg or two, served atop a bed of mixed greens dressed in your favorite vinaigrette. The bread on the side is lightly fried in olive oil scented with fresh rosemary. (Heat the oil in a saute pan and throw in a sprig or two of rosemary. Let that sizzle for a few minutes until the herb is crisp. Remove the rosemary sprig and then fry the bread, face down, in the perfumed oil.)  Enjoy!

The #1 Reason for an Ikea Run: Wilted Cabbage Salad

This is one of my all-time favorite salads. Seriously, it doesn’t sound like much, and truth-be-told, it doesn’t look like much either. But, wow-wee, does it taste magnificent.

And when you break it down, it makes perfect sense. It’s sweet, sour and salty all rolled into one. And, oh, there’s bacon! The sweet and sour notes come from red vinegar and lingonberry preserves – you know, the ones they sell at Ikea.  Actually, you can also find them at our local Safeway. But if you are looking for an excuse to hit Ikea, this is probably the most obscure reason you could concoct.

I found this recipe years ago in the New York Times. Their version called for a tablespoon of hazelnut oil in place of a tablespoon of the olive oil. Given the abundance of hazelnuts in the Willamette Valley, I’ve substituted toasted hazelnuts, sprinkled over top.  It tastes good, looks pretty and adds another layer of texture. I also gussied it up with applewood smoked bacon, versus the regular variety.  Minus the greens, the cabbage salad makes a nice side dish for pork.

Wilted Red Cabbage Salad (adapted from the New York Times)
serves 6

1 head of red cabbage, about  1¼ lb
5 T red vinegar
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt + pepper to taste
4 slices of applewood smoked bacon, diced
2 T lingonberry preserves
2 T olive oil
crushed toasted hazelnuts to sprinkle on top
2 cups mixed salad greens, washed (The original recipe calls for mache. I use salad greens, since mache is not readily available here. Read: No Whole Foods or other gourmet market!)

Remove outer leaves of cabbage, quarter, core and slice very thin. In a large bowl toss together cabbage, vinegar, sugar and salt. Add pepper to taste. Let wilt for 30 min at room temperature. Meanwhile, cook bacon until lightly browned. Drain. Mix together preserves and olive oil. Toss with cabbage. Toss in bacon. Lift cabbage out of the large bowl. There will be liquid left behind. This is the dressing you’ll toss the salad greens in. Toss salad greens, place a small amount on each salad plate and top with a serving of the cabbage mixture. Sprinkle with toasted hazelnuts. Enjoy.

Dungeness Crab Salad

December in Oregon means one thing – Dungeness crab season. In our house, that’s cause for celebration. In the Willamette Valley, you can typically find medium-sized crabs, pre-cooked, for between $3.99 and $6.99 per pound. I’m always surprised at how much crab meat the average Dungeness crab yields – it’s almost obscene, really.

While I appreciate a good crab cake as much as the next person, I prefer my Dungeness crab basically unadorned. This spotlights the fresh flavors and natural sweetness of the crab. My mantra in this case is less is more.

My go-to crab recipe is a salad with oranges, avocado and roasted beets. A classic vinaigrette, made with shallots, lemon juice, a splash of champagne vinegar, Dijon mustard, olive oil, salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of fresh parsley pull all the flavors together. It’s simple and delicious.

Fresh Dungeness Crab, Orange, Avocado & Beet Salad

2-3 medium beets, roasted in foil at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes
2 large navel oranges
2 small avocados
crab meat from 1 medium Dungeness crab
1 medium sized shallot, minced
¼ cup olive oil
½ tsp Dijon mustard
3 T lemon juice
splash of champagne vinegar
salt and pepper
1 T flat leaf parsley, chopped

Rub the cooked beets with a kitchen towel to remove their skins. Slice into wedges. Cut peel away from orange, and supreme (remove the orange segments). Peel avocados and slice into wedges. Prepare dressing: combine olive oil and mustard, and whisk to emulsify. Add shallot, lemon juice, vinegar, whisk again. Add salt and pepper to taste.  Add 1 T of dressing to crab meat, lightly toss. Arrange salad ingredients on one platter or on individual plates. Spoon dressing over the top of the salad. Sprinkle with parsley. Serves 2.

Menu Española

As an adventurous home cook, I often try to replicate dishes that I have eaten in restaurants. Sometimes I will look for recipes online or in cookbooks to help me along. Most times I take a bit of this and a bit of that from various sources and cobble together an approximation of what I’ve enjoyed.

One of my favorite restaurants of all time is Jaleo. The menu features a fabulous assortment of Spanish tapas, with a dizzying array of flavors. Sweet, salty, spicy, garlic-y (is that a flavor?), all bursting with just-prepared freshness.  Their endive with goat cheese, almonds and oranges sounds so simple, but it’s a revelation.

In the past, my attempts to make tapas at home have left me frazzled, surrounded with piles of pots and pans, and dishes trickling out of the kitchen as they finished at different times.  I devised this menu to satisfy a hankering for tapas without the drama: tortilla de patatas, fried dates wrapped in bacon, shrimp sauteed with garlic and salad greens with oranges, goat cheese and huckleberry vinaigrette.

The tortilla, which is essentially a potato and egg omelette, can be made in advance and left at room temperature while you prepare the other dishes. The bacon wrapped dates and shrimp can be made in succession in the same pan. Toss together the salad at the last minute. ¡Buen provecho!

Tortilla de patatas

2-3 medium sized potatoes sliced very thinly
1 small onion sliced thinly
1/4  t0 1/2 c olive oil
pinch of saffron threads
7-8 eggs
salt / pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in heavy sauté pan. Add saffron threads and stir. Add onions and then layer in potatoes, sprinkling with salt as you go. Stir to coat onions and potatoes with oil. There should be a good amount of oil, so that the onions and potatoes are almost boiling a bit in oil. Leave to cook 15 or so minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the potatoes are soft but not falling apart. Drain the onions and potatoes in a colander over a bowl. Reserve the oil for another use (it will have a nice saffron flavor).

In a medium sized mixing bowl, beat together the eggs; add salt and pepper to taste. Once the potatoes and onions have cooled a bit, add them to the egg mixture, pressing down to make sure they are completely covered. Let this sit for about 15 minutes.

Heat a sauté pan; add a tablespoon or so of the reserved oil to the pan. Add the egg / potato / onion mixture to the pan and smooth it out. Cook over medium high heat until the tortilla is fairly set. Check underneath periodically to make sure that the underside is not overcooked. At this point, you can either attempt to flip the tortilla, using a plate, or pre-heat the broiler and place the tortilla under it until the top is cooked. Remove from oven and slide onto a plate. Enjoy.