Author: Ari LeVaux

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Breakfast Nachos, Anyone? Here’s a Recipe.

CREDIT: Ari Levaux

Migas are a delicacy as old as tortillas. The word is Spanish for “crumbs” — specifically the crumbs of tortillas of a certain age. North of the border, the tortilla fragments are usually served with salsa, beans, and sour cream.

The basic concept of cooking old chip shards has been independently invented countless times by folks who are weary of dipping increasingly smaller chips into their bowl of salsa and wish for some way to use those tasty, unwieldy crumbs at the bottom of the bag. At one time, that weary tortilla eater was me.

I found myself staring down the dregs of a bag of La Cocina de Josefina tortilla chips, determined to not allow that resource to go to waste. Taking the obvious route, I fried the little crumbs with bacon. The eggs followed the bacon, and the salsa followed everything. After that, and ever since, the bottom of a bag has been a time to rejoice.

Ari Levaux

Breakfast nachos with egg, carrots, and spinach

These days, I sometimes don’t wait for the crumbs. Instead, I make a migas variation with whole, unbroken chips. Breakfast nachos, as I call them, are for when migas just aren’t big enough.

I soak the chips in beaten egg and pan fry them with vegetables. This treatment gives the formerly crunchy chips a moist, pliable texture that’s somewhere between a tamale and a cheesy enchilada.

While happy hour-style nachos are a legendary beer sponge, breakfast nachos are at least as good at absorbing coffee, thanks to those eggs. And when you’ve got eggs and coffee, you’ve got breakfast. Hence the name.

This eggy tortilla matrix can absorb whatever vegetables and proteins you could think to add, with each addition cooked as needed so as to be ready when the eggs are done. Bright-green broccoli florets may not be a typical topping for nachos, but the egg helps them fit in. Fry ground meat ahead of time. Add leftover pulled pork at the last minute.

Migas are about improvisation, and that spirit lives on in my breakfast nachos. I’ve swapped the corn chips for potato chips and would do it again. One thing I won’t be doing is waiting for the end of a bag to make my migas.

Breakfast Nachos

Breakfast nachos are pan-fried like migas, rather than baked like nachos. You need a pan with a tight-fitting lid, preferably a heavy pan that can hold heat. Unless it’s a really big pan, you should prepare this dish one serving at a time, as you would an omelet.

In today’s rendition, I’ve included carrots and spinach, as they are currently in season, but you could prepare it with whatever vegetables you care to eat with breakfast. Jalapeños are good. Mushrooms, too.

Makes one large serving.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

¼ cup milk

½ cup (loosely packed) grated cheese

2 tablespoons oil (or bacon or side pork, chopped)

1 carrot, sliced into ¼-inch thick rounds

2 cups whole corn chips (shake the cup so they settle)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 handful of spinach or baby bok choy

Serve with: salsa, coffee

Instructions:

Beat the eggs and milk in an oversized bowl. Add the chips and gently toss them so they are completely coated and sitting in a pool of egg wash.

Heat the pan on medium. Add the carrot and oil (or chopped bacon), everything scattered so each piece makes contact with the pan. Give it a stir after about 4 minutes. After another 2 minutes, add the garlic, stir everything around, add the spinach on top, and cook another minute. Add the soggy chips and quickly give them a gentle stir to mix them with the carrots, garlic, and spinach. Spread the chips evenly around the pan, then add the remains of the egg wash, sprinkle the cheese on top, and cover.

Cook for a minute with the lid on, then take a peek. If it looks like it’s setting up, with the egg on top looking close to cooked and the cheese melting, then turn it off and let it finish in place on the hot stove. If it’s not quite there, cook another 30 seconds with the lid on and check again. Repeat until it’s almost there, then turn off the heat and let the pan sit covered for about 10 minutes.

Stack it all into a steaming pile and serve with copious amounts of salsa and coffee.

Nachos for breakfast, anyone?

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Pumpkin Spice Latte — with Corn?

CREDIT: Arii levaux

When people say they like pumpkin spice-flavored foods, what they mean is they like pumpkin pie-flavored foods.

If people want to consume pumpkin pie spices, and clearly they do, I suggest combining them with corn. Corn is sweeter than squash, and if prepared properly, creamier as well. So sweet and creamy, in fact, that corn, pumpkin spices, and a pinch of salt are all you really need to make a pumpkin pie-flavored drink.

Pumpkin pie spice is a mix of ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. These roots, seeds, and bark share the trait of somehow tasting sweet without actually being sweet. In the presence of actual sweet ingredients, they really pucker up.

Arii levaux

DIY PSL kit starts with (clockwise from bottom left) cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves

Back to that corn spice drink. When my wife took a sip, what she said was music to my ears. Our kids swarmed into the kitchen, took sips, and said the same thing she had: “It tastes like pumpkin pie!” This was encouraging, but one question remained: Could I use my corny concoction in a pumpkin spice latte, aka the “PSL”?

I took a trip to Starbucks and paid five bucks for the smallest cup they had. I didn’t taste any coffee, only pumpkin pie, but the barista claimed she added a shot. I took it home and added a shot of homemade espresso, which made it taste kind of funny. Apparently, too much coffee makes the funny taste that pumpkin can have stand out, which is the opposite of what pumpkin spice does.

The corn spice latte (CSL), meanwhile, had none of that funniness, no matter how much coffee I added. And I added plenty. And when I added chocolate powder to the corn-coction, the resulting corn spice mocha (CSM) made me smile like a goofy jack-o-lantern.

This recipe for corn spice drink that tastes like pumpkin pie includes a chocolate option, as well as directions for adding either variation to coffee drinks. To my taste, the CSL and CSM don’t require added sugar or milk because corn is so sweet and creamy. But if you want Starbucks-level decadence, adding sweetener and creamer is the easy part.

For simplicity, I used a commercial mix of ground pumpkin pie spice. For the extreme DIYers, here is a recipe for the mix: three teaspoons each of cloves and allspice, four teaspoons each of nutmeg and ginger, and six tablespoons cinnamon, all ground.

Makes 2 servings

2 ears sweet corn, shucked (or 2 cups frozen corn)

2 cups water

¼ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pumpkin spices

Optional: 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

For corn spice latte or mocha base: ¼ cup (or more) heavy cream, 2 tablespoons (or more) sugar

Cut off the tip of the cob and hold it tip down on a cutting board. Place a filet knife or the narrowest knife you can find about halfway down the cob and cut straight down, as close to the cob as possible, slicing off a sheet of kernels. Rotate your grip and slice off another sheet. Repeat until you’ve removed all the kernels (about a cup and a half from an average size ear).

Add the corn, along with the salt, spices, and chocolate, if using, to a pot with the water. On medium heat, stir together with a fork and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes, covered. Turn off heat and allow to cool. When cool enough to work with, add to a blender, preferably a powerful one like a Vitamix. Start on the lowest speed, gradually increase the speed to high, and blend on high for about 60 seconds in a Vitamix, longer in a lesser blender. Keep going until it’s utterly smooth.

If you wish to make a coffee drink, instead blend for 30 seconds on medium, and strain out the corn chunks and fibers. If you have a weak blender, do this, too.

Pour the liquified or strained corn spices back into the pot and return to a simmer. Serve hot or cold.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Making carrot and coriander soup.

CREDIT: Ari Levaux

Last year at about this time, I sat down with a stack of seed catalogs, a warm beverage, and a pantry full of dreams. I repeat this ritual every year, fully aware that it’s only a game and that only a token amount of my food will ever come from my garden, regardless of how many seeds I order. But tokens like this have a way of taking me to some cool places, so each winter as I peruse my seed catalogs, I choose a few more. Last winter, I ordered a token pound of cilantro seeds, aka coriander. As a result, I didn’t have to buy cilantro all summer, or coriander all winter, and I became acquainted with one of England’s favorite comfort foods.

In the U.K., where cilantro is called “coriander leaf,” cooks use both seed and foliage in a velvety carrot soup. Carrot and coriander soup is so popular that entire top 10 lists have been written, ranking and comparing the various retail options available on the British market. When I started making batches of my own this winter, I began to understand why.

Ari Levaux

I had ordered my pound of coriander based on conversations with a farmer friend named Luci, who plants cilantro every two weeks, from April through September. It’s her most profitable summertime crop, in terms of output vs. return, she says. Luci recommended the Calypso variety because it can handle more heat than most cilantro plants, she can plant it tightly and cut it like salad mix, and she gets a second cutting from each planting. In the middle of summer, when cilantro wants to flower as soon as it sprouts, Luci uses shade cloth to cool the soil before planting, but token gardeners like myself can use the shade of other plants.

And we don’t need to plant our coriander in perfect rows, either. We token gardeners can just toss our coriander toward the garden by the handful. I tossed mine toward locations that were specifically chosen based on the changing angle of the sun.

When tossing seeds at the garden, one should make an effort to cover them, either by raking them in or sprinkling with topsoil or compost. Unless rain is imminent, give them a good soaking.

My Calypso seeds arrived in February. In April, I began throwing coriander into the middle of the garden, where it would get the most sun. As the days grew longer and hotter, I threw seeds into shadier spots, between raspberry bushes, under the tomatoes, beside the spinach. I threw seeds toward the pathways, the garlic patch, the chicken yard.

In the heat of summer, as expected, most of my cilantro flowered and went to seed. Most, but not all. Because I had so much cilantro in the ground, in so many spots, from full sun to full shade, it was always possible to find enough cilantro when I needed it. That token sack of cilantro seed, which cost me 14 bucks, returned free cilantro all summer long. There wasn’t always a ton of it, but it never quite ran out.

I did what you do when you have cilantro. I made salsa, chutney, curry, tacos. By the end of summer, the garden was full of cilantro plants gone to seed, some of which had dropped and sprouted anew.

I thought about trying to save some of my homegrown coriander for the pantry. Then I remembered I still had about a quarter pound of Calypso cilantro seed.

So I’ve been making a lot of coriander and carrot soup, sometimes without the fresh coriander leaf that most recipes call for — it’s great either way. I use carrots and onions from the winter farmers market, and garlic and coriander from my pantry. What I find most striking about this mellow, satisfying soup is how the coriander disappears. The carrots and onions neutralize the strong-flavored seed to the point where you can barely taste it in the soup. My version is assembled from ideas and ingredients picked and chosen from other recipes. With a dish as simple as this one, even mild deviations can have a big impact on the final character, so there is no need to get fancy. Just get some coriander, and you will be fine.

Coriander Carrot Soup

This soup is pureed, ideally in a blender. An immersion blender or food processor does the trick, eventually. We want zero chunks.

Makes 12 cups; serves 6

1 ½ pounds carrots, sliced (about 5 cups)

1 pound onion (one large one), sliced

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 large garlic clove

¼ pound potato, peeled and sliced

1 tablespoon coriander seeds or 1 teaspoon ground coriander

½ cup cilantro, loosely packed

1 teaspoon salt

8 cups water (no stock necessary)

Garnish: some kind of cream, such as heavy cream, mayo, or sour cream

Place the carrots, onion, potato, garlic, salt, and water in a large pot, and bring to “the boil,” as they would say. Simmer for 30 minutes, skimming any scum that floats to the surface.

Meanwhile, toast the coriander seeds in a dry pan on medium-low heat. When browned and aromatic but not burnt (about five to 10 minutes), grind them (If you don’t have a spice grinder, use the ground coriander) and add to the pot. Simmer until everything is tender, about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool to a temperature you can manage in a blender. Blend in batches. Add fresh cilantro and blend again, until the green flecks of fresh coriander are to your liking: not too big, not too small, but just right.

Serve hot or cold, garnished with the cream of your choice, extra coriander, or some grated ginger, if you wish.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

The wonders of the cucumber.

CREDIT: Anna Sedneva | Dreamstime.com

It’s no surprise cucumbers are considered a physiologically “cooling” food in the Aryurvedic medical philosophy of India, where the plant is thought to have first been cultivated. One sure-fire way to be cooled by a cucumber is to cool your cucumbers first. With all due respect to the quenching you can get from a warm cucumber in the middle of a hot, dry field, there isn’t a finer thing to do than stand in the sun and eat a crispy, juicy cucumber straight out of the fridge.

Pharmacological researchers have zeroed in on several chemical compounds found in cucumbers for their potential medical benefits. Many of these are found in cucumber seed extract, but interesting compounds have been isolated from the peels as well. And from the blossom end of the cucumber, also known as the bitter end, Cucurbitacin C has emerged as a molecule of interest.

It’s the very bitter flavor you sometimes taste at one end of the cucumber. The blossom end is a toxin created by the plant to ward off predators like spider mites.

Chemically, Cucurbitacin C is a steroid molecule (though it isn’t currently banned by any sports leagues, so it must not be much good in that department). Nobody has gotten sick from too many cucumbers, but there have been cases of toxicity resulting from bitter melon, a relative of cucumber, and from eating unintended hybrid cucumbers, zucchini, squash, melon, or other members of the same family.

Meanwhile, Cucurbitacin C is under investigation for potential pharmacological benefits and is showing promise in many arenas, including anti-tumor, anti-diabetic, anti-atherosclerotic, and anti-inflammatory activity.

The cosmetics industry has latched onto several molecules in cucumber seeds, promoting their ability to hydrate, elasticize, and, you guessed it, cool and calm the skin.

Now is peak cucumber appreciation season at the farmers market. Last week I brought home five different varieties from three different vendors and let the comparisons begin. The highlight was the Chinese Cucumbers, sold to me by the Russian babushkas in an uncharacteristic show of diversity; usually they sell the same gherkin pickling cukes that all the other Russians sell. The Chinese Cucumbers have thin, spikey skins like pickling cukes, a sharp crisp, and explosive water content.

And don’t let the title “pickling” fool you when you want to eat a fresh cucumber. My wife (the vegetable whisperer) prefers pickling cucumbers to slicing cucumbers, at least for raw use. For what it’s worth, I agree.

If pickles are on your agenda, however, you should stick to actual pickling cucumbers. I’ve never seen anybody pull off a decent pickle with slicers.

Another great cucumber is the Armenian, which is as delicious as it is enormous. And some of the plain-Jane-looking normal slicing cucumbers these days can surprise you.

As for preparation, there are all kinds of lovely recipes for fresh cucumbers, but if your goal is to compare and contrast, munching them straight out of the fridge is the way to go. It’s also a very enjoyable and refreshing thing to do.

But if that’s too much chewing, I suggest putting your cukes in a high-speed blender with some ice cubes and whipping up some cucumber ambrosia.

Anna Sedneva | Dreamstime.com

Cucumber Ambrosia

2 medium cukes

4-8 cubes

1/4 lime

4 mint leaves

Slice the blossom ends of both cucumbers. If you can’t tell which end is which, slice them both off and nibble each end. Then you will know. If you want to remove any bitterness from the rest of the cucumber, then rub the cut face of the bitter end against the cut face of the cucumber. Rub in a circular pattern, which will extract a bitter, milky substance that you can wipe off. Cut the remaining cucumber sections into three or four pieces each and put them in the blender with the ice cubes and lime juice.

Blend, starting low until it’s a chunky slurry, then turn the blender up to high. If it’s too slushy for your taste, add water. If it’s too bitter, add sweetener, or fruit, and blend again.

Sipping on this milky, foamy treat is refreshing and satisfying on so many levels and is a delightful way to pass the afternoon, while loading up on vitamins and fiber. And, depending on the hour, these flavors go very well with gin. I can slip about half a shot into a glass of cucumber smoothie and barely taste a thing. And if I turn it up from there, the gin flavor creates a lovely cocktail.

Intoxication and toxicity are complex phenomena that are often dependent on the dosage. One can do worse than explore these realms with cucumber in hand, and mouth.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

So Dandy

I try to pay as much attention to how something makes me feel afterward as I do to how it tastes, and dandelions make me feel good. So it isn’t surprising to learn they are full of nutrients like carotenes, antioxidants, calcium, and vitamin A. The secret to eating dandelions is a decadent sauce.

The entire plant is edible, from the tip of its tenacious taproot to the bright yellow pollen in the blossom. While bitter is the dominant flavor throughout, there is complexity as well. The flowers have an aromatic flavor that has been likened to banana or licorice.

Some dairy farmer friends of mine say that their butter becomes noticeably more yellow after the dandelion flowers appear in spring. When you drop a dandelion in butter, dandelion-tinted or not, some magical stuff happens. The flower waves its petals for a few minutes like a dying creature, and slowly browns, absorbing butter, shrinking down to a crispy nub that tastes like artichoke with a faint, intriguing note of bitterness.

There are two basic approaches to dandelion eating: bury the bitter flavor, or work with it. Either way, a rich sauce is involved. Most examples of burying involve cooking, while the more daring approaches leave the plant raw. We consume bitter greens with a salad dressing of olive oil (2 part), soy sauce (1 part), and mixed vinegars (balsamic, cider, white, lime) (1 part).

But for many of us, the right sauce may be that into which we dip our batter-fried dandelion blossoms. Or perhaps it is the bitter beverage that washes down this most spongy of beer sponges.

The only food I like deep-fried is seafood, which is why I batter my dandelions with a hint of the ocean. I hit the supermarket for a box of Tony Chachere’s seasoned Creole fish fry mix, which contains a mix of corn flour and corn meal, in addition to seasonings. The checkout guys were excited about my dandelion plans.

The cashier told me he likes making dandelion leaf tea with cinnamon. The bagger said it’s crazy people hate them because they are an important source of nectar for bees at times when no other flowers are open. “Sometimes dandelions are, like, the only option.”

At home, I made an egg wash so the batter would stick to the dandelion flowers. It contains one beaten egg with a splash of cream, a shake of garlic powder, a few drops of fish sauce, and a teaspoon of oyster sauce. Oil from a jar of anchovies would work, too. I dumped the Creole corn coating in a pan and went outside for some dandelions.

It was sunset time, and the sky was beautiful. My wife was in the garden, and all of the dandelion flowers were gone. Every single one. I assumed she was responsible, but she informed me that dandelion flowers close up at night, so I needed to look a little more closely. And sure enough, there they were, tight buds, pointing straight up, with tufts of yellow poking out the tips. I plucked them in my socks reaching in from outside the garden.

To deep fry open or closed flowers, first wash them and let them dry. Drop the blossoms in the egg wash, pull them out one at a time, and roll each flower in the breading.

Heat an inch of olive oil to 300 degrees, and drop the flowers in. Cook until they are golden brown all around. Remove and drain.

They really do taste like little animals, like insects would taste if insects tasted good. I ate them as fast as I usually eat fried calamari, dipped in a sauce of mayo mixed with salsa.

Another approach to eating dandelions is to just eat the yellow petals. If you pinch and squeeze the sepal area behind the petals, you can work them out. They can be added raw to anything, from salad to sushi to pancakes. They make a striking garnish for a soup, and the way they dress up rice is perhaps my favorite way to eat dandelion flowers.

Tossing those bright stamen into the grains of jasmine or basmati rice is kind of like a poor-man’s saffron rice, with a similar pollen-y glow. Whole dandelion buds can be added, too, raw or cooked, to any dish at virtually any point, as can the leaves, typically chopped. Topped with some crumbled nori sheets, soy sauce, sesame oil, and hot sauce, the bitter dandelion flavors disappear into a symphony of other strong, wonderful notes. My wife’s favorite cooked dish is dandelion leaf mashed potatoes. The bitter power of the dandelion can give pizzaz to the bland and balance any strong flavor, be it spicy, sweet, salty or fatty, and even more bitter.

The key is to get yourself some dandelion parts from a young plant that hasn’t been sprayed by the nozzle of a pesticide applicator or territorial animal. They are free, they are handy, and frankly, they are pretty dandy.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Nothing but respect for the super legume, lentils.

CREDIT: HandmadePictures | Dreamstime.com

I am SO PUMPED TO EAT LENTILS!

Said basically no-one, ever. At least in my bubble of America. But the more I look into this sentiment, or lack thereof, the less sense it makes.

As I write these words, I am full of lentils. Not bloated but satisfied, with a tangy, savory lingering aftertaste.

Pound for pound, lentils represent about the most human nutrition one could wring from the earth. They pack more protein than any plant that isn’t soy and are easier to digest. A serving of lentils contributes huge amounts of folate, iron, and other minerals, twice the anti-oxidants of blueberries, and about half your daily fiber needs.

Even a thin-soiled, poorly watered field can produce a crop of lentils, which is why entire societies have been built of their thick mortar. The tough determination of a lentil plant is appealing, and being legumes, each successive crop can improve the health of the soil. India, which grows more than 50 varieties of lentil and consumes half of the world’s supply, is one of the few places I’ve visited where vegetarian options are more appealing than meat-based, thanks in part to the lentil action.

In North America, most lentils are grown in the upper Columbia River basin, but they are migrating east, over the continental divide and onto the Northern Plains, where grain farmers are planting rotations of lentils to build soil. Being so good for the soil, the lentils themselves are almost a bonus, a byproduct of a healthy cropland system. And something similar can be said about lentils in the kitchen: a lentil-based meal need not contain many of them.

Unless you are cool with a bowl of green-brown, bland gruel that may also be too crunchy, it’s worth mastering a few basic concepts and learning the potential scope of lentil cookery. Sometimes I want more lentil power and less mush, and that’s when I make a pot of rasam, a soup that’s based on the cloudy water leftover from cooking lentils. The lentils themselves are a byproduct.

It’s analogous to the making of a bone or vegetable stock. Eventually, the carcass gives up so much of its goodness that it’s essentially spent, devoid of flavor and nutrients, all of which fled to the broth.

Deep down, everyone feels a nourishing vibe from lentils. But sometimes, the soothing lentil flavor for which you thirst in your bones can be elusive to conjure into the kitchen. I find the flavor and feeling of rasam, a South Indian drink, or soup, depending on how it’s served, is what I want from lentils. No less fulfilling than a bowl of chicken soup, rasam is made with lentil broth, flavored with ground spices and two sources of sour, and balanced with fat, and a fragrant garnish.

I learned about rasam from a yogi named Norman, who lived in India for decade, earning a Masters of Indology from the University of Mysore.

Rasam soup, Norman explained, is something of a power drink for Brahmans, which are the elitists of the caste system. The caste system is messed up, but that doesn’t change the fact that Brahman food can be dazzling. They drink rasam multiple times a day, he said.

In addition to the lentil water and spices, what makes rasam so electrifying is the combination of sour flavors from both tomato or tamarind. When Norman taught me the ways, we happened to be standing under a tamarind tree, and made a paste of fresh tamarind pods mashed in water. For those without fresh tamarind, Knorr brand tamarind soup powder is a great substitute. Mix a tablespoon of that powder into a cup of water for each batch of rasam.

The tomatoes can be fresh, cut into cubes, or from a can — if so, include the water. I use my frozen roasted tomato sauce. If you don’t have tomatoes and tamarind, you can substitute for one of them with fresh lemon or lime juice. It won’t be the same, but it will be good.

As for the spices, Norman claims not to use exact proportions, but I can tell you the ingredients and get you close enough to follow your own taste.

In a heavy pan with no oil, toast a tablespoon each of cumin and coriander seed, two tablespoons mustard seeds (yellow and/or brown), a teaspoon of black peppercorns, and five fenugreek seeds (careful, they are bitter!). Keep the pan moving, toasting until the mustard seeds start to pop. Crush the spices in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder, along with powdered red chile pepper. That is your rasam powder.

To prepare the lentil water, soak a cup of lentils in a pot of water for 10 minutes. Stir, discard floaters with the water, and add two or three quarts of cold water. Simmer for 30 minutes. Split, aka decorticated lentils, have their skins removed and cook faster, producing a creamier broth. Whole lentils, like black belugas, which look like shiny drops of caviar, produce a thinner, darker broth that’s no less rich.

When the lentil water, spices, and sour flavors have been assembled, heat a pan with oil or butter on medium heat, and add half an onion, flat side down, along with the tomato, tamarind water, and three or so tablespoons rasam powder. Bring to a simmer and add the lentil water. Simmer. Adjust salt. Maybe add some garlic powder (and fresh curry leaves if you have them).

That’s about it. At least, that’s all it needs to be. But this point is also a gateway of sorts. Rasam can be a base in which to cook veggies, like cauliflower or potatoes, until tender. You can also add some of the cooked lentils back to the rasam to make it thicker, or make rasam with more than one type of lentil.

Just don’t be afraid to add fat. It needs to be there to balance the acid and spices. Butter or ghee are traditionally used. Coconut milk is amazing. Bacon, inexplicably, not so much.

I serve it simply, in a bowl with chopped cilantro and a dollop of mayo.

As for the lentils themselves, that dense mushy byproduct from the preparation of lentil water, I sneak it into things. Scrambled eggs handle it well — especially the yellow lentils. Of course, you can make dal. But I’ve been enjoying a hummus-like dip, made in the food processor with olive oil, fresh garlic, tahini, salt, and lemon. For extra flavor, I look no further than my fresh rasam powder.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Instant Parma

CREDIT: Ari Levaux

I have an eggplant Parmesan recipe that’s so quick and easy to prepare it could qualify as fast food.

Like many of my recipes, this one arose from having seasonal abundance of certain ingredients on my hands. In this case, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini. For years, I solved this puzzle by making massive quantities of ratatouille, so much that I actually found myself needing to take a little break from that. The magical blending of those diverse ingredients can get a little old, especially after some time in the freezer. So now, I make breaded cutlets of the eggplant and zucchini, and oven tomato sauce out of the tomatoes. This oven sauce also includes other seasonal ingredients like onions, garlic, and small amounts of zucchini. Today we focus on breaded cutlets. If you have breaded cutlets in the freezer, it’s easy to come up with tomato sauce, one way or another. And if you don’t have tomato sauce and eggplant or zucchini cutlets squirreled away, then guess what? Now is the ideal time to get on it.

The recipe, basically, is to layer cutlets of breaded eggplant and zucchini in between layers of tomato sauce, along with cheese (provolone or mozzarella, ideally), fresh garlic (grated, pressed, or pounded), and maybe some fresh veggies like spinach, basil, sweet peppers, tomatoes, and so on. Sometimes I include some greasy, crispy, browned burger or shards of rotisserie chicken.

Ari Levaux

If your tomato sauce is thick, like my oven-roasted tomato sauce is, dilute it with water to make it the consistency of Prego or similar store-bought marinara. And if you don’t have any homemade tomato sauce, buy a jar.

The whole thing takes like 10 minutes to put together. Then you bake it at 400 for an hour. Garnish with raw onions and hot pickled peppers. The hardest part is waiting for it to cool down enough that it doesn’t burn your mouth.

The other hardest part is making those cutlets. So here we go:

Slice the eggplant or zucchini about a half-inch thick or less, keeping the thickness as consistent as possible. Place the slices in a big tray or bowl, sprinkling salt between the layers. The salt pulls out the water, shrinking the slices and making them more pliable and accepting of breading. Lay them in such a way that they will easily drain. Overnight in the fridge is best. Then, set up your typical three-stage breading assembly line.

In a big mixing bowl, mix flour with paprika, garlic powder, nutmeg, black pepper, thyme, and anything else you think will taste good. I lay off the salt, as the eggplant/zucchini have absorbed quite a bit. For a cup of flour, which will coat about two eggplants or similar sized zucchini, add a teaspoon or so of each spice and see how it tastes. Toss your slices in the seasoned flour until all are coated.

The second bowl, which contains the egg wash, doesn’t have to be as large. Beat an egg with a quarter of a cup of cream. I also add a large tablespoon of Vegenaise, for extra goodness. Beat until smooth. Using tongs or a dedicated hand, submerge each piece in the egg wash, then hold it up for a moment while the excess drains off. Then drop it in bowl number three, which contains bread crumbs or panko flakes. Flip it around until fully coated, then lay on a cookie sheet.

When the sheet is filled with cutlets (but don’t let any touch one another), bake at 400. After about 10 minutes, or when you smell browned toast, flip the cutlets. The bottoms cook faster, so if you are waiting for the tops to brown, the bottoms will burn. When slightly brown on both sides, remove the tray from the oven and allow to cool.

Then put the cutlets in the fridge to cool further, so they won’t release moisture when you transfer them to freezer bags. Then do just that. If properly cooled before freezing, they won’t stick together, so it’s very convenient to take out as many as you wish in order to make your meal, and put the rest back in the freezer.

All winter long, you will have eggplant parmigiana at your disposal. For me, this dish has morphed from comfort food to healing food. For everyone else, it’s good food. Quick food. Local food. And most importantly, delicious food.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Touching base with mirepoix

CREDIT: Ari Levaux

Today I will discuss using mirepoix to enhance two easy soup recipes. Cheater’s Chicken Soup makes use of one of my favorite ingredients: rotisserie chicken. The other recipe, Haut Ramen (that’s “Top Ramen” in French, for the unfrozen cavemen in the crowd) employs mirepoix in the preparation of packaged Ramen noodle soup.

Since both recipes include the part where you have to make the mirepoix, let’s review that step.

Trim and mince equal parts onion, carrot, and celery (or celery root, aka celeriac). If using celery stalks, include the leaves. Cut it all into consistently sized chunks, large or small as the recipe calls for. The Haut Ramen recipe requires a brunoise, which is French for “finely diced.” Making brunoise is a technique that’s more effectively shown than described, so check it out on YouTube.

Ari Levaux

mirepoix

Cheater’s Chicken Soup

One cook’s value-added product is another’s raw material. Rotisserie chicken, cooked long and slowly enough that the bones are almost spoon-tender, can make a really good soup.

Ingredients

• Rotisserie chicken, whole or partial

• Mirepoix (larger chunks)

• Tomato, canned or frozen

• Spicy things (optional; my preference is pickled jalapeños)

• Salt, soy sauce, fish sauce, garlic powder, herbs, and other flavorings

• Olive oil or butter

Procedure

Gain control of the remains of the chicken, pull it into pieces, and remove the bones. Snip the bones and tendons into small pieces with cooking scissors, and place them into a pasta basket or similar arrangement that can be submerged in boiling water, along with its contents, and can just as easily be removed from the water. One could also put the chicken skin in the pasta boiler to make the soup more oily, if that’s your thing. Heat the water and simmer the bones while you get the rest of your mise en place, which is French for arranging your cooking materials.

The next step is to cut the mirepoix and sauté it gently in olive oil, allowing a mild brown to develop.

While the mirepoix is browning and the bones are simmering, cut or pull the chicken meat apart to the consistency you wish, and add the meat to the browning mirepoix, allowing it all to cook together for a moment. This would be a good time to play around with herbs and spices. I like thyme, but you could go ginger/lemongrass, or my mom’s favorite: dill.

The soup can be taken in many directions at this point. Remove the pasta basket with bones inside, add the mirepoix and chicken to the pot, and replace the basket of bones back in the pot. At this point, I add some frozen tomatoes from last summer’s stash to the basket, so the tomato skins can be removed along with the bones and skin. I also add a pickled jalapeño or two, allowing it to contribute gentle heat and acidity to the pot without getting lost and giving someone a hot surprise.

The soup will be ready as soon as the carrots are soft enough to eat. But if possible, take a little extra time and let everything cook together for an hour or so. As it cooks, tweak the seasonings as necessary: a little salt here, a bit of garlic powder there, a lil’ soy sauce, a squirt of fish sauce, squeeze of lime, until it tastes right. Then drop a dollop of mayo on that masterpiece, and you’ve got some evidence in hand that sometimes cheaters do win.

Haut Ramen

While it’s true that a good mirepoix elevates the ingredients around it, there’s no reason to literally use Top Ramen brand when there are others to be had, like Sapporo Ichiban, or pretty much any other random brand you might find, that will be better in quality.

Ingredients

• One package of ramen (preferably the good stuff)

• One cup mirepoix, equal parts carrot, celery and onion, chopped into brunoise

• Sesame oil

• Seaweed (a ripped-up sheet of nori, or furikake seasoning)

• Egg (optional)

Procedure

Heat the water. Add brunoise mirepoix and flavor packet. When the water returns to a boil, add the noodles. When the noodles are done, add your egg, if using. Wait a moment, then turn off the heat. Leave the egg whole, or give it a minimal stir with a fork, depending on how you like your yolk, then put the lid on for two or so minutes. Remove the lid. If egg is done to your liking, sprinkle with seaweed, drizzle with sesame oil, and start slurping.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Wrapsody

CREDIT: Ari Levaux

Like a good piece of sushi, an exceptional leaf wrap combines the textures and flavors necessary for a balanced, exciting yet manageable bite. And many of the mishaps common to others who deal in wraps also threaten the would-be leaf wrap maker, such as the all-too-familiar sensation of piling on more filling than your wrapper can handle. Or worse, your wrapper can handle it all, but your mouth can’t. There are also questions of sauce, the great fudge factor, adding at the last minute whatever the rest of your combination left out. A sauce can be salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami-ish, or creamy — whatever completes the flavor. The sauce can be rolled in, dipped into, or both.

Because leaves tend to be less resilient and pliable than carb-based wrappers, they don’t lend themselves to advanced preparation because they crack and leak. Stuffed grape leaves are a notable exception; the young leaves are picked in mid-spring and blanched, then stuffed or stored for later use.

The salad bites that I’ve been rocking lately have been Mediterranean-themed, built upon the sturdy stems of Italian radicchio. A member of the chicory family, radicchio and many of its cousins, like escarole and endive, make excellent wraps as well. But radicchio are special for many reasons, not the least of which is that they grow in tight heads of elegantly cup-shaped leaves, every one of which looks like it is literally begging, open handedly, to be stuffed.

One thing about radicchio, or any chicory leaf for that matter, is that you have to be okay with bitter. And you should be okay with bitter. It is good in more ways than just beer, and coffee, and chocolate. Cultivating an appreciation for bitter plants is like exercising a muscle. It can be done, and it makes you healthier.

I have a garden full of Italian chicory plants of all shapes and colors, as well as romaine, an honorary chicory. But when it’s time for wrapping, the one I reach for most often is the Rossa di Treviso, an elongated variety with lanky, fleshy leaves that stay crispy when stuffed or dipped. I fill them with the likes of tomato, onion, cheese, and perhaps a chunk of salmon, wrapped and dipped in a marinade before chewing.

Some notes on bitter leaf wraps:

As with many fresh leaf wraps, they are best done one at a time, just when you are ready to eat it. They don’t always hold together well, especially after you have overloaded them with stuffing, and should be brought to your mouth quickly.

The cheese should be dense and bold, like feta or provolone picante, or perhaps shavings of Romano or Grana Padano. Whenever buying Italian cheeses, look for the DOP designation, which is Italian for the shit.

If I’m wrapping fish, I use mayonnaise instead of cheese (grape seed oil Vegenaise, to be specific). If I don’t have salmon, pickled herring works well. As do anchovies, or a dab of anchovy paste.

If I do have salmon, and I do a lot these days because it’s in season, I bake it slowly with a sweet rub to balance the bitter of the radicchio. Rub it with a mix of two parts brown sugar and one part salt, with a splash of maple syrup if you’ve got it, and then bake at 215 degrees for about about a half hour, until some milky juice starts weeping from the tight, glazed orange flesh. Allow to cool, and break it apart into chunks.

Don’t forget the sliced onion.

Capers don’t hurt.

Tomatoes should be cut so they easily give up their juices. Whole cherry tomatoes could legitimately be called cherry bombs, and without a cut surface, a tomato won’t absorb the vinaigrette.

Speaking of which, I use my wife’s radicchio dipping dressing: ½ cup XVOO, ¼ cup soy sauce, ⅓ cup vinegar (half white balsamic, half balsamic).

As you dip, you may have to add more oil, as it hangs out on top and coats each leaf as you remove it (bummer, I know). You decide on a dip-by-dip basis how much dressing to use.

You can also marinate the onions and tomatoes in the dressing before adding them to the wrap and skip the dip altogether.

Put the wrap in your mouth, chew, and enter a flavor warp. Rinse with water or wine, and repeat. And that, for lack of a better ending, is a wrap.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

How to handle all that zucchini

CREDIT: Anton Ignatenco | Dreamstime

Be suspicious of your neighbors. Behind the usual pleasantries, they may be probing you for weakness, trying to decide if you or your spouse will most easily break and accept a gift of zucchini.

Or maybe you were silly enough to plant some of your own. One way or another, you have zucchinis on your hands. And that’s why we need to talk.

If not for the ideas, then for the encouragement. The good news is they taste really good, which means you can handle any (reasonable) amount of zucchini. You can save money — and eat really healthy — by eating zucchini in every meal, and you would not regret a single bite. And in the same kitchen session, you could put away some zucchini for later.

So there’s your encouragement. Now, let’s turn to the ideas for how, specifically, we might handle our zucchinis.

As the comedian Joe Rogan has observed, “If you can imagine it, you can find it on the internet.” He was addressing a very different topic than “what to do with zucchinis,” but nonetheless, if you have access to a web browser, I suggest conducting a search for “zucchini ________,” filling in the blank with whatever you have on hand, or whatever you can imagine. You will get hits.

(Or, as an intellectual exercise, try turning the question around and searching for a kind of food that can’t be made with zucchini.)

Bread, soup, salad, pasta, or steak (fried, grilled, broiled, or breaded), to name some generic foods. But we can be a lot more specific — and regional. Parmesan, ratatouille, and other Italian-style, as well as Thai-style (in curry, in leftovers), Vietnamese-style (with cold noodles), Chinese-style (with oyster sauce), Russian-style (fried), or Ari-style (chocolate zucchini mayo cake).

Yeah, chocolate zucchini mayo cake. In fact, since it is my style, and my column, why not start with that Chocolate Zucchini Mayo Cake? It is so moist, simple, and fun.

Step 1: prepare chocolate mayo cake batter*

Step 2: grate zucchini to the batter before baking it.

Step 3: proceed

*I got my chocolate mayo cake recipe from the label of Hellmanns Real Mayonnaise jar that we always had in the fridge growing up (this was one of several recipes that rotated through the labels on such jars). It’s a basic cake mix, in which the oil and eggs are substituted for with mayo, which contains … oil and eggs. To do so in any cake recipe, chocolate or otherwise, from scratch or from a box, simply omit the eggs called for, and substitute the same quantity of mayo for the oil that is called for.

And then add your zucchini, the shreds of which will melt into the batter, where they act as the secret glue behind the moist glitter. The zucchini won’t interfere with the baking process, while it adds moisture, fiber, and density to the finished product. Consider peeling the larger specimen, as squash skins will toughen as they age. Any extra that you can’t cram into cake, cram into freezer bags, and freeze.

Like many who are sweet of tooth, I have a salty side as well. This time of year, my quick and tasty go-to recipe is one that works with the honker monsters of summer, with no need to peel even the largest. It works equally well in a pan, under the broiler, or on the grill, and turns my kids into ravenous zucchini monsters.

Slice a large zucchini thickly, up to an inch, and lay the slices on a tray. If there is room, add thick slices of onion as well. Sprinkle zucchini lightly with salt on both sides, and then pour on some olive oil (about 1/4 cup for a decent sized one), white balsamic vinegar (1 tablespoon), red balsamic (1 teaspoon), and soy sauce (1 tablespoon), and many hard shakes of garlic powder.

Turn the zucchini slices as a way of mixing the marinade and coating the slices, and then let them sit for a moment while you heat up your grill/pan/broiler. Don’t mess with the onions. Just leave them alone on the tray while you flip around the zucchini, and then transfer them all gingerly to the heat when it’s ready.

Lay the zucchini and onions on the heat, and cook them until soft. In a pan, they need no extra oil. On the grill, where they can be placed among the hamburgers, beware of flare-ups. Serve with the condiments of your choice.

These lusty, juicy steaks are a joy to consume, and consume, and consume, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch a family get full on zucchini. Those slices go well atop a burger, or in place of a burger on a bun.

At the other end of the size spectrum, if you are so lucky to acquire some, are the babies, those finger-sized individuals that are small enough that they still have beautiful, edible flowers attached. This vegetal veal would do fine in the above marinade, as would any size of summer squash, but because they are so delicate they’d be more effectively enjoyed by a slow, gentle frying in butter, uncut, complete with blossoms. Turning when brown and adding minced garlic before the final moments of cooking. If you want to batter coat and deep fry them, I won’t attempt to stop you.

So now you have some ideas for what to do with squash at the extreme ranges of size and age. For all the zucchini in between, consult the internet.