Zucchini fun

Focusing on terrines. Cold, hot, any and all. I think they offer a wonderful departure from the splot, or spoon-full, or pile of vegetables on the plate. Artistic, delightful, and usually a unique taste. I can't help but admit to being inspired by my first visit to Fauchon. Disneyland for the adult cook. Eye-popping  everything: terrines, pates, offerings of canned, fresh, bottled, and bagged food. I just wanted to move into a space above the store so I could walk past 2 or 3 or 4 times a day.

However, more on simpler efforts. This was a summer terrine. Yet, a big bunch of basil leaves were surely dried or from a long way away. Being ramp season, among others, I opted to saute chopped ramps and use here. Very subtle, delicate flavor. Now I have to make it with basil for comparison. Stay tuned.

Zucchini Terrine with ramps

Winter food

I'm not eating raspberries from Peru, nor weirdly early asparagus. Too much fuel. You know when you pick a fresh tomato, sometimes there are soft spots. That's OK, you don't notice or cut them out. Well, canned tomatos are available whole, peeled and really smelling and tasting wonderful in the winter. If you drain and seed them and remove any stem parts they are really very sweet flesh. Mushrooms are either your frozen or dried morels from springs past or you live in a different winter climate than New England. We can get the portabello easily. When sauteed in oil or butter they turn rich walnut brown and taste of the earth.

Well, I would like to thank Jake Levin and Stephan Reynard for pointing me in the right direction. Both the terrine (tomato, artichoke, and mushroom) and the leeks (browned then braised until meltingly soft) were part of dinner Sunday.

The terrines of Stephan Reynard are just worthy of Fauchon (for which you must travel very far to visit), or ecstasy (which requires little travel but a smattering of consciousness). Really inspirational and simple terrines. Really outside of the conventional terrine and pate. They're good too, but the others are just magnificent. People really love looking at the too so a double bounce when it's served.

Celery root

It may be ugly and tough however, when you prepare it you'll wonder why you've not had it to dinner before. Peeled, chunked, and processed with a shredding blade in the food robot, it is the basis for the classic Celery Remoulade (Celeri Remoulade [with the proper accents]) You can swing the tone around because the sauce is mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and lemon juice. I added a bit more mustard and used 1/2 lemon for 14 ounces of root. I served it with broiled veal chops so it offset the fat and richness of the meat just perfectly. I know you can cook the root, probably by boiling or steaming, then whip it into a wonderful creaminess like a potato. I'll try that Saturday.

Winter squash: the Butternut

Wait. There's more. Just continuing on and thinking of the Butternut squash: how about soup? So using the same 3/4" cubes, cooked on high for 7 minutes in combo of chicken stock and duck stock (3 cups and 2 cups) made them soft to the fork and soft for the blender. I poured off all the liquid to a bowl. I used a wand blender to make a heavy, heavy soup. I then started adding the cooking liquid back and kept blending. When all was back in it was a great consistency.

I think that adding water would have been sufficient. The stocks give it a different mouth feel: richer. I know a robust vegetable stock would have been perfect too. Say cooking water from carrots, kale and broccoli....
This would allow a pure vegetable soup.

I didn't know what to expect so I added judiciously. Some salt and ground pepper to taste. A dash or two of Worcester Sauce, and a teaspoon of yellow curry powder. Stirred up and served garnished with scallions. Butternut soup is a great tribute to fall vegetables on cooler nights.

Winter squash: the Butternut

I don't mind breaking down the whole squash. Many do mind. I think most often the squash gets halved, salted, buttered, and baked. You can scoop it out or cut serving size pieces. It warms the house, the cook, and after a while, the eater. It's very good.

You can buy the peeled, seeded, and chopped squash in our markets, but I really don't mind the cutting.

Most vegetable peelers make simple work of removing the hard, waxy outer skin, through the delicate green layer to the yellow flesh. Since I was already trolling around The Way to Cook, J Child, I went to the squash page. BOIL it?! I thought what a travesty. Not falling prey to my calcifying thinking I broke the squash down to 3/4" cubes, put them all in a large iron skillet, added water, and heated at medium with a cover. I was asked for 8 - 10 minutes but couldn't do it that long, so pulled them out into a serving dish around 6 or 7 minutes. They were perfectly done. Then I reduced the remaining liquid to a thick sauce and poured that back over. If I recall I only added salt to the initial preparation. Really sweet and tender and recommended. Who knew. If you really want to add something, butter, of course, would make a splash.

It comes to mind that I could have whipped the batch but I would guess it would be a little watery for my personal taste. However, I could see adjusting the water down and boiling and whipping to produce a wonderful iteration of the butternut squash. And come to think of it pairing with Nervous Nellies Hot Tomato Chutny would be a fine taste combination.

Shaggy mane

Lovely blooms of shaggy mane (Coprinus comatus) mushrooms awaited as I came home Wednesday night. Right combo of rain (plenty) and humidity. Look for them in sandy-soils, grassy, and lit but not sunny. Also called inky caps they turn inky black starting from the bottom skirt and all but disappear in a wink of inky-ness. Kind of like squid ink; somewhat ephemeral. The pure white caps are great cleaned, chopped and sauteed in olive oil or butter. These are not mushrooms with a remarkable flavor. It is very subtle. I made a single egg omlett and put the 1/4 cup of mushrooms in before folding. Salt and pepper make a difference. Delicate woodland flavor. I would guess a milk or cream of mushroom soup base would let out some more flavor.

Turnips redux

The smaller are sweeter. The terroir is there too. Even soft on the shelf seems to cook well and taste as I might expect. When making batch one of the puree of turnip I cut each into smallish chunks: 1/2 and 1/2 and 1/2 and 1/2. I guess that makes 16 pieces. The boiling was short, monitored by a fork. As in potatoes: softened is done. Off to the food processor with a bit of butter, salt, and some grinds of pepper. They were fantastic, almost as good as I had hoped; however, they were a bit watery. The watery tone did not make the taste bad, or look bad, but it wasn't where I wanted to be. I am certain it was a) boiling and b) too small a piece. So the following batch was only in quarters. Same processing, and a much, much better consistency. They were not like a whipped potato, but they did hold a peak somewhat. They were slightly more particulate, softly granular, and still had a bit of water. Last time I whipped parsnips - no water, even though boiled too. So now I might try the roasting then into the processor. I am certain I will have to put it through a chinois because I don't think the baked will process smoothly. We'll see. Winter is the perfect time to do this experiment as the fragrance scents the house and the heat, well, the heat is welcome.