? I saw it mentioned a few times here and there, and then when I finally had a look at a copy of it, I had to bring it home. The book is by Skye Gyngell, and she is the head chef at London’s Petersham Nurseries Cafe. She describes her cooking as produce driven in that she takes inspiration from what is at its freshest and what flavors would complement that ingredient best. Her intention is to not interfere with the ingredients too much, to let them taste of themselves. That results in recipes that are very doable and very delicious when made with produce at the peak of its season. Each chapter in the book focuses on one ingredient, and it is shown in several different types of dishes. In the asparagus chapter, there’s a beautiful dish involving a tomato dressing and creme fraiche, one simply prepared with ginger and garlic, and a gratin of white asparagus. I’m really looking forward to cherry season, because the chapter about cherries has a cherry cordial and brandied cherries I want to try. There are chapters for tomatoes, nuts, fish and shellfish, vinegar, apples, cheese, and more. I currently have six pages marked, and those are just the recipes with ingredients that are in season right now. The dish you see here today is from the garlic chapter, and I had locally-grown garlic to use from my CSA. It was minced and then mixed with yogurt to make a tangy, flavorful sauce for a spicy, fried egg.First, the yogurt was mixed with the minced garlic and salt and pepper, and that was left to sit so the flavors could mingle a bit. Next, butter was browned with a few sage leaves in it, and I used leaves from my new sage plants in my garden. When I read this recipe with browned butter with sage and garlic yogurt, I knew this was going to be good. The browned butter was used to fry the eggs, I used some beauties from a local farm, and sliced red chiles were added as well. To serve, a dollop of garlic yogurt was placed on the plate, the egg and some chile slices were added, and that was topped with the sage leaves and a little drizzle of brown butter.
This may look like a scallop dish, but it’s all about the bacon. Did I just say that? Yes, I know, I don’t eat red meat, and I use turkey bacon. Good, natural, nitrite-free turkey bacon can be found, and that’s what I use. Although, I’m hoping to get my hands on some local duck bacon one of these days, but I digress. What I wanted to explain was that the flavors in this dish were very subtle and lovely, and the smokiness from bacon was essential to the chestnut sauce. The recipe clearly states that one thick slice of bacon should be used, and my turkey bacon, natural or not, wasn’t sliced very thickly. So, I should have used two slices, but I couldn’t have known that before finishing the sauce. Regardless of fussy details like that, it was a delicious sauce for scallops with fried sage leaves. This was in the November issue of Food and Wine and was created by Rajat Parr. As I read the issue over Thanksgiving weekend, I decided then and there that this would be our Christmas Eve meal.
To begin the sauce, the bacon of your choice is to be cooked in butter. Not a bad start for building flavor. After the bacon has cooked, a chopped leek was added. Next, cognac was to be added and flamed, but since I really didn’t want to burn the house down on Christmas Eve, I opted to just let the cognac simmer without flames. Last, chicken stock and vacuum-packed chestnuts were added, and the sauce was brought to a boil. It simmered for three minutes before being transferred to a blender to be pureed. The puree was poured back into a saucepan and was kept warm on the stove while the sage leaves were fried and the scallops were seared.
The primary ingredients here, scallops and chestnuts, are both very mild. Scallops have a slight sweetness, and chestnuts are almost earthy, but the bacon smoke and sage were there to tie it all together and punch it up a bit. The sauce was velvety and thick without being too rich. I knew as I tasted it I should have used a little more bacon, and how often does that thought ever occur to me, but it was still a great match for simply seared scallops.
You know how food people are. We could talk about ideas for cooking and baking all day. An exchange on Twitter with Nurit from 1 Family Friendly Food led to an email conversation which ended up being about baking madeleines. Neither of us had ever baked them, and we wished we could have spent an afternoon baking together, but since we live many miles apart, we did a virtual bake-along. I had an idea about trying a savory madeleine, and Nurit wanted to try a sweet variety. See her blog for delicious orange madeleines. My quest for savory madeleines led me to Martha where I found her recipe that could be made into three different flavors. I opted to bake just two of those flavors and ended up with sage madeleines and sun-dried tomato madeleines.
I don't know why I was so worried about baking these. For some reason, I thought there was something tricky about getting the cakey cookies to be shaped properly, or to get them to come out of the pan. I know that for some, the hump on the top of the madeleine is a requirement, but these only formed a small hump which deflated a little as they cooled. I might just blame that on them being made with cornmeal and having chopped herbs or tomatoes in them. Other than there being not much of a hump, the shape came out fine. I buttered the pans well before spooning in the batter even though the pans I used are non-stick, and there was no problem removing them. In fact, they slid right out easier than anything I've ever baked. This really was a simple recipe all around. Flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt, and a little sugar were whisked together in a medium bowl. Milk, eggs, and slightly browned, melted butter were incorporated. Then, the batter was divided into two parts in separate bowls although the original recipe suggests three parts. To one part, finely chopped sage was added, and to the other, finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes were added. Then, it's suggested that the madeleine cups be filled only three-fourths full. I was a bit heavy handed, and filled mine pretty much completely. Happily, there was no overflowing, and they turned out fine.
My favorite of the two was the sage. As soon as I tasted one, I thought how great these would be with a hearty, winter soup. They would also make nice items for an appetizer spread or cheese course. Now that I know how quick and simple this recipe is, I'm already thinking about different herbs or nuts or vegetables to try mixing into them next time.
On the last day of winter, it seemed like a good time to finish off the pumpkin ravioli that I had made weeks ago and left in the freezer. Back when winter started, I roasted a big, blue pumpkin that had the brightest orange flesh, puréed it, and put it to a couple of different uses. One of those uses was pumpkin-cinnamon rolls which are a big favorite of Kurt’s and mine. Obviously, the pumpkin was also used for ravioli, and some of it remains in a tub in the freezer. The filling for the pumpkin ravioli included puréed pumpkin, a scant amount of toasted bread crumbs, an egg, shredded parmigiana reggiano, and a few scrapes of nutmeg on the microplane. I made a standard pasta dough with flour and eggs, and mixed it in a food processor rather than by hand. (My pasta-making education came from Marcella Hazan via her excellent book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, but I took the liberty of using the food processor to speed things up a bit.) I rolled out the pasta into sheets with a hand-cranked Imperia machine, and plopped the filling by the teaspoonful along the length of the sheets. Then, folded the sheets in half lengthwise over the filling and cut the ravioli with a fluted pastry wheel. The fresh pasta was boiled briefly and topped with browned butter, fried sage leaves, and a few curls of shaved parmigiana reggiano and was delectable. Kurt and I agreed that is our preferred way to prepare pumpkin ravioli, but it is very rich. It makes a great first course or primo. The remaining ravioli went into the freezer, and we enjoyed the browned butter and sage topping again a few weeks later. Last night, to use the rest of the ravioli before Spring arrived and made pumpkin seem out of place for dinner, I tried serving them with a gorgonzola sauce. I made a béchamel with finely chopped sage and melted gorgonzola and parmigiana reggiano into it. The ravioli were topped with the sauce and sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts and a little more parmigiana. This version of the ravioli was also delicious, and freezing the ravioli works fine, but nothing can beat the taste and texture of fresh pasta on the day it's made.
