Family Feast April 2012

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We decided that every fourth month, we are going to venture out to try a new restaurant as Family Dinner.  Our first choice---


 

April 07, 2012
Haven
Oakland



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Ottolenghi's Lemon and Eggplant Risotto

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Risotto is such a delightful dish. Comforting, creamy, simple, stable.   And I am a huge fan . As in, I will make me a risotto any chance I get, with any sort of ingredient you can imagine. It doesn't matter--any season.  Spring--lemon and peas;  Summer--tomato and parmesan;  Fall--mushroom;  Winter--butternut squash and pancetta.  If it's in your fridge, you can put it in this Northern Italian rice dish. However, you will want a very specific kind of rice--a high starch, medium- or short-grain rice--in order separate this delicacy from any other rice dish. The high starch means that as you cook it, it releases its starch, making that requisite creamy smoothness to risotto. The most popular risotto rice in the United States is, hands down, Arborio rice. This short-grained rice isn't as starchy as some of its popular Italian counterparts, but it is the most easily procured. However, a...
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Ottolenghi's Semolina, Coconut and Marmalade Cake

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"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman, and a ride home."  This week I did two very important things: I made Ottolenghi's Semolina, Coconut and Orange Blossom Cake and I rewatched The Outsiders . These two events are not related; however, they were both delightful. Let's start with the cake, shall we? This cake is a light - in - texture - but - heavy - in - flavor take on the ubiquitous Eastern Mediterranean semolina cake. From Greece to Syria, Egypt to Turkey, this cake, well, takes the cake. Call it revani , basbousa , shamali, harisi , mix in yogurt, coconut, rose water instead of orange blossom water--no matter what, you're going to do all right.   Ottolenghi's version adds coconut and marmalade to a large dose of sunflower oil and semolina. He also serves it with a dallop of Greek yogurt freshened with orange blossom water. However, this is the kind of ...
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Classic Frisée Salad (Salade Lyonnaise)

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This one is a no brainer. Especially if you have vowed to eat healthy this winter.  (Yes, we're calling this healthy. It's salad. Go away.) Let's face it, the combination of bacon and eggs is almost always the answer to life's questions. Cobb Salad, Spaghetti Carbonara, and (let's face it) Egg McMuffins. All divine. All bacon and eggs. Coincidence? Nope. But this one, at least, can claim to be a smidgen healthier than all of those.  But if we follow the narrative that France brings us the best in (or at least the foundation of) the gastronomical world (a narrative espoused by many of my own culinary heroes, including Alice Waters), then we need turn only to Salade Lyonnaise, or a classic f risée salad with poached eggs and salty lardons. I say, let's follow that narrative.  With its creamy, tangy, smoky, and umami-based flavors, this little salad(e) hits all the right spots. Let's break it down, shall we? Egg --you have to have the perfect...
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Cookbook #21: Jacques Pepin's Simple and Healthy Cooking

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Adapted from Cookbook #21:  Jacques Pepin's Simple and Healthy Cooking Recipe:  Pasta Primavera Spring. That's about all I have to say about this recipe.  It just screams spring. And we're nearing the end of spring, so it's high time I made this recipe.  This is the kind of recipe that makes me want to renew my CSA box. Pasta primavera, so the story goes, was "invented" in New York City in the 70s at Le Cirque .  Word spread, and by the 80s everyone was making it, including the husband in his World Foods class in high school.  No joke.  Nowadays, gone are the cream and butter sauce base of the 70s and in their stead come a lightened version of broth and olive oil. This recipe comes from Jacques Pepin, after those halcyon days of heavy French cooking.  A bit of healthy living certainly led to this fine little cookbook.    I would argue that most of the recipes in this book are more weeknight cooking than weekend ent...
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Ottolenghi's Salmon Steaks in Chraimeh Sauce

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Oh, what a sauce this is.   What a glorious, glorious sauce. And it comes from our new Jerusalem cookbook, from one of this blog's favorite chefs and current culinary darling, Yotam Ottolenghi.  I need not detail that this blog has featured recipes from Ottolenghi here and here and here and here ,  but I will anyway because, whoo boy, I love these recipes.  This sauce comes from the Sephardic Jews, who resided on the Iberian peninsula until the Spanish Inquisition.  After their expulsion from Spain in 1492, many Sephardic Jews were folded into the Mizrahi communities in Northern Africa and the Middle East.  Such intermingling of people and cultures has produced some culinary superstars; this being no exception.  Indeed, you can taste the Spanish, Moroccan, and Libyan influence on this sauce. Sephardim pride themselves on their chraimeh recipes, and often serve them at Rosh Hashanah and Passover celebrations (whereas Ashkenazim might serv...
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