, I noticed a simple, summery dessert that I could whip up at the same time. And, coming to think of it, I never do that. I never set out to make a meal including dessert all in one go. Dessert, or most of it depending on what it is, is always made in advance, but this one really is easy enough to prepare right along with dinner. It’s a custard with creme fraiche that’s poured over berries and then gratineed under the broiler. Once browned, it can sit patiently at room temperature while you enjoy your main course. Now speaking of that browning step, I’ve noticed that organic sugar doesn’t behave quite the same as regular sugar. In this case, confectioner’s sugar was suggested, and I used an organic brand, and I don’t think it browned as well as it could have. Deborah Madison confirmed the fact in her book Seasonal Fruit Desserts
that for browning or bruleeing, regular sugar works better, but I’m not sure why that is. At any rate, these little desserts only sit under the broiler long enough to become bubbly and a little browned, so it didn’t matter much here.An easy custard was made with warmed milk slowly whisked into a mixture of egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch. That was returned to a saucepan and thickened. Butter and salt were added while it was warm, and then the custard was chilled in the refrigerator for a bit. Once cool, creme fraiche was folded into it. In the book, the dessert is made with raspberries, but I had blackberries, and any kind of berries or really just about any fruit would work. In the intro to the recipe, sauteed apples or pears with dried fruit is suggested for a winter version of this. The blackberries were tossed with a little granulated sugar and then scattered in ramekins in my case. The dessert can also be made in one, larger gratin dish. The custard was spooned over the berries, more berries were placed on top, confectioner’s sugar was sifted over each ramekin, and they were placed under the broiler for about seven minutes. I dusted them with a little more confectioner’s sugar before serving.
When I was looking for an interesting meal idea last week, I turned to the summer chapter of Sunday Suppers at Lucques. I found this Nicoise-style salad that could be made with several things I had on hand with just a few minor changes. First, in the book, it’s made with grilled halibut, but I used wild salmon instead. The dish also includes haricots verts, cherry tomatoes, and fingerling potatoes. I had different versions of each of those vegetables from my CSA and the farmers’ market. I received green beans last month, and they had been steamed and frozen, so I thawed them rather than buying haricots verts. I had bought local, yellow pear tomatoes, and I had just received some pretty, purple potatoes in my last CSA box. The tomatoes were to be sauteed in anchovy butter, and my stash of salt-packed anchovies came in handy as did my homegrown basil and thyme. This meal had all the components of a standard Nicoise salad, but the elements were tweaked in ways that added great flavor. First, the fish was seasoned with lemon zest and thyme and then grilled which was flavor-boost one. Next, the potatoes were roasted rather than boiled, boost number two. The cooked green beans and roasted potatoes were sauteed in olive oil with shallots and then tossed with spinach, olives, and lemon juice. Eggs were soft-boiled here which left them extremely tender and lovely. Last, the tomatoes were warmed and softened with melted butter and minced anchovy. The buttery tomatoes became a sauce that was spooned over the grilled fish which sat on top of the spinach salad, and it was crowned with sliced green and opal basil.
Spring has a lot going for it. Flowers, open windows, and longer daylight hours are a few bonuses. Two more are fresh halibut and fava beans. The fava beans make you work for their delightfulness, but that’s balanced out by how simple it is to sear some halibut. I’ve mentioned before how much I like the book Sunday Suppers at Lucques
and the way it’s divided into chapters according to seasons. The spring chapter might be my favorite, and that’s where I found this dish. It couldn’t be more of spring if it tried. The meyer lemon salsa with the creme fraiche flavored with savory was just the right lively touch to top the potatoes, favas, and fish. And, there were pea shoots. Suzanne Goin seems to like pea shoots in the springtime because they appear in several recipes in this chapter, but they’re delicious and crisp and fresh and work well in each case. I was worried that I might have to make some substitutions for this dish because I don’t usually see the herb savory or pea shoots in local grocery stores, and I wasn’t sure if favas would be available yet, but I knew that halibut was ready and waiting. Luck was on my side, and after only searching at two stores, I found everything I needed.
The meyer lemon salsa can be made in advance, and I got to use two of the last lemons on my tree. One lemon was zested for the fish, and then both were peeled and supremed and the juice was collected. The lemon juice was combined with minced shallots and salt, and then olive oil was whisked into it. Chopped savory, mint, and parsley were added along with the lemon segments. Also, the creme fraiche was prepared in advance, and that only involved stirring chopped savory leaves, salt, and pepper into some creme fraiche. The halibut was marinated with lemon zest, thyme, and parsley and left in the refrigerator for a few hours. Then, it was time to address the fava beans. Removing them from their pods is no big deal. The trouble starts when you have to blanch the beans and then remove each and every bean from its skin. There’s no way around it, you just have to skin each one, but since Kurt helped, the task was completed in record time. Up next, fingerling potatoes were par-boiled, allowed to cool slightly, and gently smashed. The potatoes were then warmed in a skillet with melted butter, and then the favas and pea shoots were added to that skillet. Meanwhile, the halibut was simply seared in olive oil for a few minutes on each side.
The dish was plated with potatoes, favas, and pea shoots topped with creme fraiche and meyer lemon salsa, then came the halibut and more creme fraiche and salsa. The creme fraiche added a touch of richness to the light fish and vegetables and the salsa worked perfectly with each part of the dish. I’m embarrassed at how quickly my plate became empty, but with these fabulous, fleeting spring flavors brought together so nicely, it couldn’t be helped. 
Last week, I stopped by our Wednesday farmers’ market to see what looked good and what might become inspiration for our weekend meals. It was the carrots and sweet potatoes that caught my eye. Fresh, bright orange carrots, just pulled out of the ground have a crunch and sweetness that makes their distant, plastic-bagged cousins seem completely unrelated. The carrots I bought last week came from Johnson’s Backyard Garden, and it was an enormous and gorgeous bunch of carrots. I remembered reading about a carrot puree and eventually found it in Sunday Suppers at Lucques. That puree was part of a meal including harissa-spiced fish and gingered beets, and Suzanne Goin wrote that it was all inspired by carrots. She once had an abundance of fresh and delicious carrots and came up with this meal to highlight them. That sounded pretty perfect since I was in a similar carrot situation.
In the book, the dish is prepared with snapper fillets, but as I stood before the fish counter last weekend, the rock fish had a shinier and happier look about it. I went with the rock fish, and regarding sustainability issues, rock fish and snapper rate about the same. However, I’m kicking myself now that I realize I could have purchased snapper from a local source at the Saturday farmers’ market. Next time. The first step in preparing this meal was making harissa. Dried ancho chiles were rehydrated, cumin seeds were toasted and crushed, and canned tomatoes were cooked until reduced. All of those items were added to a food processor along with garlic, hot smoked paprika, cayenne, vinegar, and salt and pepper. Once pureed, it was harissa. Remember those sweet potatoes I mentioned? For another meal, they were made into oven fries and served with some of this harissa, and that was an excellent pairing. For this meal, the harissa was coated onto the fish which was left to marinate in the refrigerator for a few hours. Meanwhile, the beets were roasted, and the carrots were chopped. With such fresh carrots, I don’t actually peel them. I wash them and pull off any root fibers, but leave as much of each carrot intact as possible. The carrots were steamed with some cilantro stems while chopped onion was sauteed. The steamed carrots were added to the onion and allowed to caramelize a bit before that mixture was pureed with olive oil. The roasted beets were skinned and then tossed with a vinaigrette of shallot, jalapeno, garlic, ginger, mint, cilantro, lime juice, and olive oil. The fish was to have been grilled, but I pan-sauteed it instead.
There are times when a vegetable puree can be reminiscent of baby food, but this wasn’t one of them. The sauteed onion and caramelization added depth, and the hint of cilantro and olive oil prevented the puree from being too sweet. The earthy beets in vinaigrette were a bright and tangy contrasting flavor to that of the puree. And, the main attraction, the fish, was the star of the meal. The harissa had flavored the fish well, but since most of it was scraped away before cooking, what remained was subtle, smoky savoriness. This was one of those meals that I couldn’t believe I had whipped up in my own kitchen and that it was so easy. I love going out for great restaurant meals, but I’m always delighted when a meal seems that good at home. 
Last week at the farmers’ market, I bought some summery-perfect blackberries, and in my mind, I saw them swirled into some kind of cake. It could be argued that I have a mess of recipes that flit through my head on occasions such as this. You see, I knew that I had cut out a page from an old issue of Saveur with a blackberry cake made by Tamasin Day-Lewis, and I also knew I had read about a blackberry cornmeal cake somewhere else. When I got the blackberries home and safely stowed in the refrigerator, I started flipping through files and books, and the cake from Saveur, while tempting, was somehow more complicated than I remembered and seemed more like an end of summer treat. The cornmeal cake didn’t look quite how I remembered it either, and then like a certain bear in a fairy tale, I found a recipe that looked just right. In Sunday Suppers at Lucques, there is this rich and lovely pound cake of Basque origin with a blackberry compote baked into the center of it and served poured over it as well. That was it. Those berries were destined to become a pound cake.
The cake was made with 14 tablespoons of melted butter and four eggs. It was not lacking in richness. It also contained dark rum, vanilla, almond extract, and orange juice. It was baked in a loaf pan, and just before the pan was placed in the oven, the cake surface was brushed with an egg ash and sprinkled with a handful of sugar. Said surface puffed beautifully while baking and emerged crackled and glistening. For the compote, caramel was made with sugar, water, and scrapings from one vanilla bean, and then half of the blackberries were added to the caramel. Brandy was also to have been added, but I was out of brandy, and this is where things got interesting. I used bourbon instead and thereby made the discovery that the flavor of bourbon with that of blackberries is quite wonderful. I’m sure brandy would have been great too, but at some point consider making a blackberry compote with bourbon because I’m now thinking up excuses to mix those two items together as often as possible. So, some blackberries went into the caramel and cooked until they released their juices. Then, the caramel mixture was strained into a bowl. The liquid went back into the saucepan on the stove and was thickened with a cornstarch slurry. The thickened sauce was then combined with the strained cooked berries and the remaining uncooked berries, and half of that combination was layered into the cake batter in the loaf pan while the other half of it was used for serving.
The recipe didn’t end there. This wasn’t just a pound cake and compote. Thick slices of the pound cake were buttered and toasted on a griddle before being served. Cream was suggested for serving along with the compote, but I didn’t feel like that was even necessary. I didn’t think the buttering and toasting was necessary either because the cake looked fantastic just as it was. I went ahead with the toasting just for fun, and the result was almost french toast-like on the cut surface. It did add another dimension to the flavors and textures of the dessert, but I have to say the cake held its own quite well when I skipped that step the next day. It’s a pound cake that can be elevated to another level of dessert indulgence, or it can be enjoyed one simple slice at a time, and the blackberry bourbon compote does no wrong either way.
When I read Sunday Suppers at Lucques, there was a handful or so of recipes that I wanted to experiment with as soon as possible, and this was one of them. This tart is the second item I’ve tried from the book so far, and the greens we’re getting from our CSA were the inspiration for it. Now, Kurt is perfectly happy with a vegetarian meal here and there, but the deluge of greens we sometimes have can make him want to be a strict carnivore. At some point, he begs for a greens-free meal, and that means I have to get creative with how they’re incorporated into dishes. This tart worked perfectly and happily was not an eat-your-vegetables experience. Instead, this was an oh this is good, and oh by the way, those are greens aren’t they kind of meal. In other words, this tart combines great flavors that work really well together.
In the book, it’s described as a swiss chard tart, but I had beet and collard greens to use. Those were cleaned and chopped and sauteed in olive oil with shallot and thyme. I’ve used Whole Foods’ all butter puff pastry with good results a few times now, and that’s what I used here. The puff pastry was thawed and then just unfolded onto a baking sheet. No rolling was required. That was topped with a mixture of ricotta, egg yolk, olive oil, creme fraiche, and salt and pepper. Goat cheese was crumbled on top of that. Then, the cooked and cooled greens were squeezed to remove liquid and then spread on top of the cheese mixture and were topped with more crumbled goat cheese. It was baked for 25 minutes while the relish was assembled. The pastry with cheese and greens was a great start, but what really made this dish was the currant pine nut relish. Pine nuts were toasted and set aside. Olive oil was heated in a saute pan and a rosemary sprig and a dried chile de arbol were added. Minced onion went into the pan, stewed for 10 minutes, and then was transferred to a small bowl. The saute pan was then used to reduce a quarter cup of balsamic vinegar down to one tablespoon. Meanwhile, currants were plumped in hot water and then drained. The bowl of sauteed onions was mixed with the toasted pine nuts, plumped currants, and reduced balsamic, and chopped parsley was added.
The richness of the ricotta and creme fraiche was fanastic with the greens. And, this could, of course, be made with milder spinach, but let me tell you about the relish first. The currant pine nut relish with the sauteed onions and reduced balsamic vinegar was such a perfect complement to the greens, I would recommend using the boldest flavored greens you can find. The layers of sweetness and spice and the hint of acidity mingled with the bitterness of the greens in amazing ways. Instead of making this to use up some greens, in the future, I’ll be making this because it’s really delicious.
I had heard so much about the book Sunday Suppers at Lucques by Suzanne Goin that I finally got a copy last fall. There’s always a backlog of books I need to read, so I only just got through it a month ago. If you’re not familiar with it, the book showcases meals from the restaurant’s Sunday night, set-menu dinners. It’s organized by season as the food is true to Goin’s interest in using locally-grown, perfectly fresh produce. When I was reading the book, one dish after the next piqued my interest, but the one I absolutely had to have first was the wild striped bass with farro, black rice, green garlic, and tangerine. This just sang of spring to me. It looked fresh and bright and luscious in the photo with the tangerine sauce and segments. So, to celebrate the start of the season I made this on Saturday with just one minor alteration.
I never see wild striped bass in my local stores, but I learned that I could make a special request for it at Whole Foods. Unfortunately, I learned that too late so I proceeded with snapper instead of bass. An issue that required some planning ahead with this dish was the black rice. There is a list of sources in the book which includes one for the rice, but I found Italian black rice on Amazon and purchased it there. Italian black rice, check, farro, check, believe it or not, green garlic was ready and waiting in the produce department of Central Market, so check for that too. Then, in an effort to buy back some carbon footprint from the flown-in rice, I snipped the pea shoots from my garden and used a local viognier from Becker vineyards. Viognier actually does very well in Texas, and this is one of a few good locally grown and bottled options.
When I arrived home with the snapper, I set about seasoning it with tangerine zest and thyme and parsley from my garden. The fish then rested in the refrigerator for about four hours. The rice and farro were cooked separately but similarly with olive oil, onion, bay leaves, wine, and water. Some chile de arbol was added to the rice while the farro received some thyme. Once cooked, both were poured out onto a baking sheet to cool. To complete this part of the dish, sliced green garlic and sliced chile de arbol were sauteed in olive oil before the farro was added. After the farro toasted some, the rice was incorporated and then the pea shoots were added just to wilt. I finished this part and let it stay warm on the stove while then cooking the fish.
The snapper was removed from the refrigerator and allowed to come to room temperature before being quickly seared in olive oil. After a few minutes on each side, it was removed, and the pan was wiped clean. The sauce was a simple reduction of tangerine juice into which butter was whisked and salt and pepper and tangerine segments were added. The fish was placed atop the rice, farro, and pea shoots, and the tangerine sauce and segments were spooned over all.
I had thought about this meal for so long that I really took my time in preparing it. I wanted to make sure I didn’t blank on any crucial steps in the instructions. I have to say again that it just looked so great in the book that I had really worked up high expectations. And, yes, it was that good. The sauce was brightly fruit flavored and not too rich, and the farro and rice were chewy and substantial without being heavy. The chile de arbol and green garlic added nice pops of flavor, the pea shots were freshness itself, and the fish was light and nicely seasoned. Now, I’m planning other ideas for black rice and farro with asparagus and who knows what else, and I’m looking forward to trying more things from this book throughout this spring and the rest of the year.
