Eating Dirt

Polenta and Blood Orange Sorbet

Polenta is a rather intensive affair, when cooked at home from dry crunchy grit. The traditional recipe calls for near continuous stirring, for half an hour to fourty-five minutes. Deborah Madison offers a more modern walk-away version, but it needs to sit in a double boiler for an hour and a half, after two separate pots of water are brought to a boil, one at a time, on top of each other, all before the grit even comes into play. At my house, a cooking time that long and with that many steps could only be accomplished with very well orchestrated planning, which is not my forte.

So I chose the stir a lot method. I figured I'd be standing right by the stove, prepping veggies for the accompanying ragu, so it wouldn't be a big deal. And it wasn't. Except that I failed to notice what else was going on in the kitchen, most notably the scissors in my daughter's hand and the hair on the floor.  

Luckily it wasn't mine. I am too old for a mullet. But on a rather perky soon to be five year old, the look can be somewhat fetching. Jon Bon Jovi did always have a sort of preschooler-esque discipline about him, and when I found her in the living room, sitting on the sofa with the orange sky gathering through the window behind her, I could see the resemblance. 

Perhaps devoting all my attention to cooking dinner under the guise of taking care of my family is a bit misguided, but the polenta was pretty good. Excellent in fact. The ragu was passable. And the blood orange sorbet? Fabulous.

---

Traditional Polenta (adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone):

If you're making this with the ragu, you'll want to start the pancetta step of the ragu before the polenta.

2 cups course cornmeal

1 1/2 teaspoons salt or to taste

2 to 6 Tablespoons butter

Bring six cups of water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan. Add the salt and then the cornmeal in a steady stream, stirring constantly with a whisk to avoid lumps and having the meal seize up within the first few minutes. Lower the heat and cook, stirring more or less constantly for 30 to 45 minutes. If the polenta seizes up into a hard mass, add small increments of boiling water while it cooks, to smooth it out. When done, taste for salt and then stir in butter. Serve immediately or keep it warm over boiling water (in a double boiler) until ready to serve.

---

---

Provencal Vegetable Ragout (adapted from Cooking Fresh from the Bay Area):

1/2 pound pancetta, cut into one inch pieces

1 leek, sliced thinly into rings

1-3 sprigs thyme

1 cup chicken stock

1 quart water

8 to 10 baby carrots, scrubbed (sliced into baby sized pieces if you use larger carrots)

3 spring onions, sliced (spring onions are pretty small, about the size of a leek)

1/2 cup chanterelles or other forest mushroom (rehydrated dry ones work fine)

2 cups freshly hulled peas or shelled and peeled fava beans I'm sure frozen would be OK)

1 bunch asparagus, rinsed and trimmed

2 Tablespoons butter

Heat a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and brown, for about 5 minutes. Add the leek and thyme and cook until the leek starts to soften. Add the chicken stock and water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for an hour or so.

When the pancetta is tender and there is about one cup of liquid remaining (after about an hour), remove the thyme and transfer the mixture to a saucepan large enough to hold all the vegetables. 

Bring the heat up to medium, add the carrots, onions and mushrooms to the pancetta-leek mixture. Cover and cook for about four minutes (longer if you used older carrots). Add the peas, cover again and cook for two minutes. Add the asparagus and butter and cook for four more minutes, or until the asparagus and carrots are tender. Be careful not to let the liquid evaporate completely, you may need to add a little bit of water. When the ragout is finished, there should be only a small amount of liquid coating the vegetables.

Taste and salt, if necessary. Serve over polenta.

---

---

Blood Orange Sorbet (adapted from Chez Panisse Cooking):

This is one of my favorite recipes. Ever. I've been making it yearly since my husband and I were given a fancy juicer by one of our wedding guests. Maybe since even before that, using a hand juicer, after my parents gave us an ice cream maker. Its a little late in the season this year for blood oranges, but if you, like me, buy them and then spend weeks agonizing over the right time to make sorbet, they will keep fine in a plastic bag in the fridge. 

12 to 16 blood oranges, to yield 1 quart juice

grated peel of two of the oranges

1 cup sugar

Grate the peel of two of the oranges and set it aside. Juice the oranges and strain through a fine-mesh sieve (this is a great job for little kids, have them rub a spatula along the bottom of the sieve to help the juice drain through). Place the juice in a pan or bowl and add the sugar and the peel. Stir the mixture until the sugar is entirely dissolved (another good preschooler job). Chill the mixture in the refrigerator, then freeze in an ice cream maker. Serve the day it is made.

---

Easter Lunch

 

Mmmm....Lamb Rub!

We had a wonderful lunch today - and the best part?  I didn't cook it.  My husband Jason, who likes meat, cooked a leg of lamb and  a pot of beans.  He made fennel and blood orange vinaigrette. My friend Laure brought cream puffs.  All I had to do was go out into the garden and snip some lettuce and arugala. Luckily, I have a nice raincoat. 

The lamb was a two day project - Jason picked it up from Avedano's on his way home from work friday and somehow managed to cram it into the refrigerator.  Saturday he realized he'd incorrectly instructed the butcher and removed the thigh bone himself, much to the horror (or was it fascination?) of our children and their guest, Iris.  He made a paste of garlic and parsley and little fish and rubbed it all over the lamb, inside and out.  Then he tied it up with some string and crammed it into the fridge again.  Sunday he roasted it in the oven. After the work was done, he assured me that really it wasn't much work at all.

Then, after lunch, he took the kids out to see a movie.  It was great to have the house to myself, but a little lonely to wash all those dishes in silence.  I guess I could have turned on the radio. I did get a chance to do some reading on the sofa, though, which is really rare.  Usually I read in my bed, in the middle of the night when I can't sleep.  

Right now I'm reading Best Food Writing of 2009  for the Food Lit Book Club I moderate at 18 Reasons. 18 Reasons is a non-profit spin off of Bi Rite Market, over in the Mission, that hosts a variety of food related events - lots of tastings and how-tos.  And it's an art gallery, for food related art. Right now Sita Bhaumik has a show there, "To Curry Favor", that includes a huge wall print made of curry - its' fragrance fills the room.

We're starting the second quarterly session of our book club this month, and will be also be reading Farmer Jane by Temra Costa and It Must've Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten. Meetings are on the last Saturday of each month, from 1:00-3:00. We've had special guest stars at two of our three meetings so far, Anne Zimmerman, whose biography of MFK Fisher is coming out soon, and also Novella Carpenter, the author of Farm City. If you're interested in joining, send an email to info@18reasons.org for details.

Happy Easter!

---

Roast Leg of Lamb (adapted from Canal House Cooking Volume 3):

One 8-10 pound leg of lamb, tail, pelvic and thigh bones removed; shank and heel bone left attached. Have the butcher give you the removed bones, to flavor the beans.

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 anchovy fillets, minced

1 bunch parsley, leaves chopped

extra virgin olive oil

1 handful fresh rosemary, leaves chopped

salt and pepper

Make a paste with the garlic, anchovies, half the parsley and salt and pepper.  Open up the meat so it lays out flat and rub the paste into the inside of the meat. Wrap the loose flaps up meat over the inside areas with paste and tie kitchen string around the leg to hold it together.  Put the lamb in a large dish and rub about two Tablespoons of olive oil, the rosemary and lots of salt and pepper on the outside. Refrigerate the lamb overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350˚.  Put the lamb in a large roasting pan, meatier side up, and let the lamb come to room temperature before putting it in the oven. Roast the lamb until it is browned and crusty, and the meat inside is rosy with an internal temperature in the thickest part registering 120˚ for rare (about 45 minutes), 130˚ for medium-rare (about 1 hour). Transfer the lamb to a cutting board or serving platter and let it rest, covered loosely with foil, for 10 to 20 minutes before carving.

Carve the lamb and serve it with the remaining parsley.

---

---

Easter Beans:

3 cups cannellini beans, soaked overnight

1 large yellow onion, quartered

1 large carrot, finely chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

2 sprigs lemon verbena 

salt (tomato salt or rosemary salt, if you have some)

bones from a leg of lamb (have the butcher put them aside for you when you purchase the lamb)

The night before, cover the beans by an inch or so of water and let them soak.  The next day, put the beans, lamb bones, onion, carrot, celery and lemon verbena in a big pot and cover all parts by 1/4 inch of water. Bring to a boil and simmer gently over low heat until the beans are tender, one to two and a half hours.  Be sure not to add salt until after the beans are soft.  If you do add salt early on, the beans will never soften and cause indigestion.

When the beans are soft, add salt to taste - start with 1 Tablespoon and go from there - be sure to taste the broth instead of the beans, because it will take a while for the beans to absorb the salt.  After salting, continue to cook the beans over very low heat (or just let them sit with the stove turned off) for at least another half hour, but not so long that the beans cook too much and fall apart.  Before serving, remove the onion quarters and large chunks of celery.  Use a slotted spoon to serve, leaving the liquid in the serving bowl.

---

---

Spring Greens with Orange Fennel Vinaigrette (adapted from Epicurious.com): 

makes 8 servings

1/4 cup fresh blood orange juice or fresh orange juice

2 tablespoons minced shallots

2 teaspoons grated orange peel

1 teaspoon honey

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh fennel bulb

2 tablespoons chopped fennel fronds

3 blood oranges or seedless oranges

12 cups torn assorted salad greens (such as arugula, watercress, mâche, and endive) 

2/3 cup walnuts, toasted

salt and pepper

Whisk the orange juice, shallots, orange peel and honey in a medium sized bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in the oil, then fennel and fennel fronds. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and chill. This dressing can be made up to a day in advance.  Re-whisk the dressing before using.

Peel the oranges and divide them into sections. Working over a bowl, cut the membranes off each section of orange. Combine the greens and walnuts in a large salad bowl.  Drain the orange segments and add them to the salad. Toss with enough dressing to coat the greens evenly, you may not use all of the dressing.  Season with salt and pepper and serve right away.

---