Green Sauce

My current culinary obsession is a simple mix of chopped parsley, minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and a splash of red wine vinegar.  We call it “green sauce.”  To call it salsa verde would give it some exotic flair, but also create confusion between the Italian version which, like mine, is mainly herbs, and the Mexican, which has a tomatillo base.  And anyway, the Italian salsa verde is likely to also include anchovies, capers, and other elaborations that I eschew, so in our house, green sauce it is.  

Odd little digression:  whenever I make green sauce I can’t help thinking of a Waitrose magazine article from years ago about Terence Conran, the British retail magnate and restaurateur.  The article described a typical summer gathering in Conran’s splendidly English garden, where the main course was grilled sliced sirloin with green sauce.  It seemed oh so civilized, and summery, and at once sophisticated and appealingly rustic.  Funny the things that impress you, and stick with you, at different points in your life.  Aside from the green sauce connection, I have no opinion whatsoever about Terence Conran.

As the tidal wave of fresh produce from garden and market begins to build through July and into August, our cooking becomes ever more rudimentary.  It’ a matter of light the fire, throw everything on the grill, bung it on a plate, devour.  Fresh romano beans, tomatoes, corn on the cob, new potatoes and mild sweet beets wrapped in foil and roasted in the coals—these things need little adornment.  But—they do benefit greatly from just the right adornment, and for me, for now, that is green sauce.  A summery herbed mayonnaise is lovely, but sometimes a bit heavy, generally too much work.  Traditional Genovese pesto is something I enjoy a couple times a summer, but basil’s assertive flavor can overpower delicate vegetables and cause palate fatigue.

And then, there’s just something about exalting humble parsley to a starring role that really appeals to me.  It does seem civilized, and grown-up, in a good way, the sign of a mature palate.  Mireille Johnston, in her excellent cookbook Cuisine of the Sun,  opines that the classic French dish pot au feu (boiled supper, in essence) can only really be appreciated by those over the age of 30.  The same can probably be said for green sauce.

While I wouldn’t push aside a plate of Sir Terence’s sirloin, I think fish is the perfect protein with green sauce.  We broiled some Lake Superior whitefish a few nights ago, served it up with oven-roasted potatoes and romano beans, a coal-roasted beet left over from a previous repast, and fresh green sauce—just perfect summer eating.  Cold roast veal with green sauce pops to mind as a dish that would be quite typical of an English summer supper, enjoyed al fresco.  But who ever roasts veal these days?  Pork loin could take its place very nicely.

Just writing about this kind of food makes me think I’ve unconsciously started channeling Elizabeth David….

But here, let’s get back to earth, with our feet firmly planted on mid-American northern turf.  I went out to the garden and gathered a handful of beans, a carrot, a watermelon radish, a few ribs of celery, and parsley, of course.  Flat leaf, “Italian” parsley has the best flavor, I think, but I wound up with some curly parsley in my garden this year, too, by accident, so I used a bit of that.   From the market I had sungold tomatoes (absolute flavor bombs) and sweet corn.  Sliced a levain loaf and walnut bread.  Quickly whipped up a fresh batch of green sauce. A more elaborate lunch than is typical for us, but while the season provides this kind of bounty, I’ll happily skip the tuna fish sandwiches.  Such a light and flavorful lunch, and how colorful!

I’ve never measured the ingredients for green sauce.  It’s a handful of parsley, chopped as fine or coarse as you please, a good clove of garlic, or a couple puny ones, minced very fine though not quite to a paste. Then olive oil, enough to inundate the herbs and make it a sauce rather than a paste (pesto), a splash of good red wine vinegar, just enough to bring an edge of acid, not so much that it becomes vinaigrette.  You could use lemon juice instead of vinegar, that’s the only substitution I’ll approve.  Salt, plenty, gray sea salt if you have it.

Needless to say, but as this sauce is predominantly olive oil, you want to use a good, flavorful oil.  For years I was devoted to Zoe Spanish olive oil, but lately we’ve been buying, and enjoying, the extra virgin kalamata olive oil from Trader Joe’s. 

DO NOT ADD PEPPER! I’m sorry, you just can’t.  Because, that’s why.  Pepper doesn’t go in green sauce, not in mine, anyway.

Now, you could vary the herb component, add a little chervil, maybe some leaves of thyme.  But I wouldn’t let basil anywhere near my green sauce.  Well, maybe the tiniest bit, and only in early summer, when the basil is still mild-mannered, not the bossy, arrogant, anise-scented basil of July and August.  And of course, you could go full-on salsa verde with the anchovies, capers, etc. 

But then, it wouldn’t be green sauce.  It would have lost its innocence, scuttled its essential simplicity.  Why did I even bring that up?  This sauce is perfect.  Enjoy it before our fleeting summer flees....

Text and photos copyright 2015 by Brett Laidlaw

Maple Spice Grilled Sirloin

Submitted for your approval, my idea of the perfect summer supper:  Grilled Hill & Vale sirloin marinated in maple syrup, cumin, sambal, and garlic, and a catch-all salad of market and garden produce.

What could be more appropriate for solstice eve?  We've been lighting a fire to cook dinner more often than we've been turning on the oven of late.  There are these cottonwood trees looming over the house, and we had a lot of the dead wood cut back late last winter, so there's an abundant supply of firewood lying in the yard.

 I get my exercise knocking these rounds into manageable pieces, and we have no need to buy charcoal for our cook-outs.  Cottonwood produces a clean, hot fire; the coals don't last terribly long, but that's fine for quickly grilling a piece of meat and some vegetables.

My trick for grilling vegetables is to set a wire cooling rack with about a 1/2-inch grid atop the regular grill grate.  This way we can grill things as small as green beans and snap peas without having them slip through the grate.

The only problem with this kind of cooking is that I come in to dinner smelling like I've been out fighting a forest fire.  Oh, well; there are worse problems in life..

While I tended the grill, Mary put the salad together:  lovely leaf lettuce from the Menomonie farmers market, radishes from our garden, some cubes of very non-local avocados.  Grilled snap pea and the season's first green beans from the market went on top.  Into her dressing strong with mustard and garlic she added fresh herbs including chives, thyme, parsley, and mint.  The mint went beautifully with the cumin in the steak marinade, a very North African flavor combo.

It was the cumin, in fact, that inspired the whole dinner--a fresh little baggie from the co-op sat on the counter perfuming the kitchen powerfully in this warm, humid weather.  Here's the marinade:

½ teaspoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons sunflower or canola oil

1 teaspoon sambal oelek chile paste

1 tablespoon maple syrup

2 teaspoons soy sauce

Pinch salt

Lots of freshly ground black pepper

1 large clove garlic minced

I marinated the steak for a couple of hours at room temp.  While the steak grilled, I put the platter with the remaining marinade and a couple of cubes of frozen chicken stock into a warm oven.  When the steak was done I put it back on the platter to rest, and the juices combined with the now melted stock and marinade to make the simplest of sauces.

Things could get a little repetitive around here from the cooking perspective.  While the thought of doing more elaborate preparations might tempt me from time to time, I imagine that for the next few weeks I'll probably brush those notions aside, and go out to light a fire.

Happy Solstice.

Text and photos copyright 2012 by Brett Laidlaw

Pesto: Not Just for Basil Anymore

What I'm about to say will likely astound some of you, particularly any of you young whipper-snappers who've know little or nothing of the days before burrata, Neapolitan pizza, foie gras carts as common as hot dog stands, and free-range artisan single source heirloom poultry in every pot, but here goes: I was there when pesto was invented. Well, maybe not "invented," but I do recall very well those days when basil pesto arrived in a great fragrant tsunami on these shores. That was also the time, not surprisingly, when rare and exotic foodstuffs like real parmesan cheese, prosciutto, balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil were first becoming known here. Funny, huh? Before that time, all we knew of food started at Hamburger Helper and ended at Shake N Bake chicken. This was a mere twenty years ago. I know that many of you recall those innocent days as well as I.

The reason I'm taking this trip down memory lane is to help explain why I don't really like basil pesto anymore. The reason: so smitten was I with this rarified blend of fresh basil, garlic, cheese, pinenuts, and olive oil, I gorged on it until, frankly I was sick of it. I burned out on basil pesto in the mid-90's, and I've never really recovered. That tragic occurence also took away a lot of my enjoyment of basil itself. I mean, I don't dislike basil, but I'm really much more of a thyme guy.

My solution for getting back into the pesto game after my disillusionment with basil is this here mixed-herb pesto, which allows me to put away some summery herbal freshness without the Genovese flashbacks. Interestingly, basil is the main herb in this mix, since it's the most abundant in my garden right now, but it recedes under the influence of the other greenery. To the basil base I always add plenty of thyme, a good amount of mint, parsley, and some cutting celery.

Poking around my Saint Paul garden at this time of year is really a sort of domestic foraging, and while I was wending my way through renegade squash vines, I spied some neglected carrots, and grabbed a few sprigs of the freshest green tops to add to my pesto. I also pinched off a few tomato leaves, which are indeed edible, and bring that appetizing savory quality. I also came across some rather sad, underachieving fennel plants that I planted mid-summer. No bulbs to speak of, but I was able to glean a few feathery, anise-scented fronds. Add some sorrel, and a handful of chives. I think that's all of it. Rosemary and tarragon I avoid--they'd be too assertive in the mix; well, maybe just a little of each, but be careful.

Rinse and spin, jam it all in the FP. I added also the juice of one-quarter lemon and a couple good pinches of salt, then about a quarter-cup of olive oil to start. Start blending, and add more olive oil as needed to make the emulsion. This herb base can be amended later with cheese, garlic, nuts, or used as is.

How I will use it: drop a cube into the soup pot just before serving; smear on lamb chops, chicken, or fish pre-broiling; stir into a wine-stock pan sauce for a steak or chop; melted into hot polenta, or rice pilaf; or on pasta, of course, with the traditional additional flavorings.

Conveniently, one FP-load of herbs made enough to fill one ice cube tray. Knock another fall chore off the list.





Text and photos copyright 2011 by Brett Laidlaw

Cool

We haven't suffered with the blistering heat that has afflicted the eastern states this summer, but July slogs into August this week with a definite dog days' feel, a thick, humid warmth. The tomatoes like it, along with most everything else in the garden. It's not my favorite sort of ambience, but it does provide opportunity to appreciate those simple foods, simple meals of summer--corn on the cob, a platter of sliced tomatoes, rack of pork spareribs smoking away in the grill through the sultry afternoon.

That was our supper last night, that and this cooling salad of cukes, chervil, and garlic chive shoots (the unopened flower stalks, really) in a buttermilk bath. The tangy, translucent buttermilk, blended with a little cider vinegar and sunflower oil, made the cukes seem even cooler.

Chervil--that's the lacy leaf lying atop the cukes above--is one of my favorite herbs, with an anise scent more delicate than that of tarragon or fennel. But if you don't have that you could use a bit of tarragon and some parsley, and if you don't have the garlic chive shoots, regular chives would stand in just fine.

Cucumbers in sour cream with dill, seems to me that's the Midwest-Scandinavian potluck standard, yes? This is an homage to that classic, but lighter, perhaps a bit cooler. The dressing amounts here make for a fairly soupy salad, which I liked. It actually had me thinking of a soup with this basis, a sort of buttermilk gazpacho. With no break in the damplish heat in sight, look for that preparation later this week....

Buttermilk Cukes with Chervil and Garlic Chive Shoots
serves two to four

2 smallish cucumbers with nice thin skins, or a larger English or Asian type
6 Tbsp buttermilk
2 tsp apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp sunflower or vegetable oil
scant 1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp finely chopped garlic chive shoots, just the very tender top few inches
a few sprigs chervil, chopped

Slice the cucumbers very thin, about 1/8-inch. I used my Benriner mandoline. Mix everything together. Refrigerate and let the flavors meld for an hour or so before serving. It can be made a day ahead, too.



A word about garlic chives and their shoots: If you have garlic chives in your garden, you probably have a lot of them, and if you don't, well, I'm not sure I would recommend that you add them. Unless, that is, you are very conscientious about dead-heading plants with the potential to become invasive. Garlic chives spread both by dividing underground, and by spreading their little black seeds, copiously. They will inhabit any slightest crack, between edging and sidewalk, between boards on a deck where there's a speck of soil--you get the idea. Their dark, flat, blade-like leaves have a nice, pungent, garlic-onion flavor and aroma--a bit like ramps, actually--but the best part of them is the flower stalk before the flower has opened.

By running your hand up the stalk and letting it break off where it wants to, you get just the tender sweet tips, which are delicious chopped into salad dressings or, if you have a quantity, to stir-fry up with some soft-scrambled eggs or a bit of good bacon, speck, or Chinese sausage. When we get into Sichuan mode, right about now, the hottest, humidest part of the summer, those sweet, aromatic shoots become a regular part of dinner.


Text and photos copyright 2010 by Brett Laidlaw

Inspired by Carrots

Lest it should come to be thought that, like a family of otters, we subsist on nothing but a steady diet of stream trout, I offer this simple repast well-rooted in terra firma. With some chicken. To tide us over until I can report on the earth oven pizza.

The star of the show is carrots, the first baby carrots from our garden, unusually early, for us, and sown in an unusual way. Two years ago I planted a little patch of carrots late in the summer, too late, it turned out, to produce usable roots that year. I mulched them well, and many of them survived the winter. In the spring they began to flower; many umbelliferous plants have this biennial habit.

The roots grew as the flower stalks ascended, but when I pulled one I found it had gone woody. I let the carrots go to seed, because the flowers were strange and beautiful, and in hopes of harvesting carrot seeds come fall. Which I did, planning to sow them in the spring, but something wonderful happened before I could.

This spring I pulled all the old plants and weeds (conscientious gardeners do this in the fall; I am lazy) and dug the bed where the carrots had been, intending to put tomatoes there this year. While I waited for the ground to warm to tomato temp, the wonderful thing occured: nearly the entire four-by-eight foot raised bed sprouted with carrots. This was several weeks ago, surely the earliest I've ever had carrots growing. I did plant tomatoes in that bed, as well, and now I'm thinning carrots away from the tomato plants.

Yesterday I harvested a salad spinner's worth of sweet, succulent baby carrots, and we cooked them on the grill with some spring onions from Mee Vue at the market, chicken thighs (Kadejan), and served the lot over couscous with an olive-oil-lemon-herb dressing. Tasted like summer on a warm, humid night.


There's no real recipe here, just a general method:

--We gathered a mess of herbs from the garden: thyme, sage, mint, chives, fennel greens. Lots, you can't have too many.

--We minced a large clove of garlic, and chopped fine the zest of half a lemon.

--We salted and peppered four chicken thighs, added a third of the herbs and garlic, a glug of olive oil, and squeezed on some lemon juice.

--We combined the rest of the herbs, garlic, and lemon zest, drowned them in olive oil, a good half cup, all the juice we could get from the lemon half, good couple pinches salt, and a healthy pinch of piment d'espelette, a ground chili from the Basque region of France.

--When the coals (natural chunk charcoal, please!) were ready we browned the chicken well, then smoke-roasted it (apple wood) for twenty minutes or so, opened the grill and put on the carrots and onions--which had been coated with olive oil and seasoned--to cook until nicely browned and just tender.

--Couscous, two-thirds cup dry is a good amount for two people, you just add the same amount boiling water, cover and let sit fifteen minutes. Fluff, season, serve.

Couscous can be dry, but not when liberally drizzled with the herb-and-olive oil dressing, topped with smoky, crisp-skinned chicken and those wonderful grilled vegetables. I think even an otter might toss aside his trout for a meal like that....

Text and photos copyright 2009 by Brett Laidlaw