Posts by: Andrew Cohen
The taste of fresh ground coriander is a refreshing floral, citrusy flavor with a little bit of nuttiness to it. I like to use it as one would pepper when I don’t want the bite or heat pepper can bring. I have a pepper mill just for coriander seed I like it so much. I suggest giving it a try. Find an old mill at the flea market, or grind some up and try it to see what you think before buying a new mill.
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This dressing was made to go with a salad of Little Gems and Oakleaf lettuces and Quickled Leeks, but would be good with a cabbage salad with peanuts and shrimp, or on grilled chicken or pork chops. This would be good in a shrimp cocktail with avocado as well.
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Use this to top grilled or roasted fish, or serve as a side. This would be good mixed into hearty grains or thinned with a little pasta cooking water and used as a sauce on pasta shapes like campanelle or dischi volante. The fava greens are the tips of some of the plants and may include flowers. They have a “green” spring quality to them, and you want to just cook them.
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The cabbage is rendered tender but still crunchy by salt-wilting it, then it is gently warmed in a sauté pan with a mélange of soft cooked leeks and green garlic. This method brings out the sweetness of the cabbage which works well with the sweetness of the alliums and makes a great foil to the silkiness of the leeks and garlic.
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This light soup celebrates spring. If you have asparagus, add some 1/8th inch bias cut slices and you have all the local vegetable harbingers of the season. This recipe is more of a guideline, really. Feel free to play with it. You could just add the chard stems to the liquid, but the sautéing brings out sweetness in the stems, and wilting the chard in a separate pan gives a lighter, cleaner flavor to the broth. The fava greens are the tips of the plants, including some of the flowers. Add mushrooms, carrot shreds, whatever you find.
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Tagged with: chard • cheese • farro • fava beans • fava greens • green garlic • leeks • mushrooms • oyster mushrooms • soup • spring
This dish can be made with any beets you wish. If you have red beets, and fuyu persimmons, this is a great combination, both for flavor and visuals. The contrast of cold persimmon and hot beets is another layer of interest. This dish can be served as a side or starter, but is hearty enough to be a main course, although the flavors are bright. This recipe was inspired by a dish from Gramercy Tavern.
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Use this dressing with the Little Gems, Feta, Red Onion Quickles salad, or anything with orange or pistachios in it. You could use this dress lentil salads, or scallop dishes as well.
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Pistachio oil is pricey, but is a wonderful indulgence. It works magic in dressings, lentils, and grains, and is a nice way to finish scallops or fish. It matches well with orange and other citrus. Look for smaller bottles and keep it in the refrigerator. If you do not have pistachio oil, just use a plain red wine vinaigrette.
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Tagged with: cheese • eggs • herbs • Italian parsley • lettuce • little gem lettuce • nuts • onions • oregano • parsley • quickles • salad • vinaigrette
This is my take on something I learned in cooking school. Fujian cuisine is known for full flavored yet light dishes that showcase the main ingredients. The area is also known for wet dishes such as soups, stews, and braises, as well as seafood, along with an emphasis on umami flavoring. This dish hits all those points. The chicken version is another dish that uses a store bought roasted chicken or left-overs. This dish goes together pretty quickly.
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Persillade is classic of French cuisine that ranges from ridiculously simple to fairly simple. At its most basic it is a cup of flat leaf parsley and a minced garlic clove, chopped and combined. It can be thrown into a dish right at the end to warm it and bring out the aroma of the garlic and parsley, or it can be stirred into soups. Some are made with olive oil (the south of France) or butter (the north). Garlic versus shallots, some have lemon zest added, or juice. You can find them with other herbs as well. This version is simple and is combined with blanched turnip tops to sauce the turnips.
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This dressing was made to go with a roasted beet, orange, and mizuna salad, but would work with other bitter or sharp leaves (arugula, radicchio, and escarole) or roast cauliflower, as well as going well with shrimp, hot or cold, grilled fish such as sword or tuna, or even pork chops.
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These are the nice uniform slices of citrus you find in salads and dishes in nicer restaurants that look like a segment of orange but there is not white skin of pith on the segments. In restaurant lingo these are known as “suprêmes”. You want a good sharp knife for this, preferably one with a thin blade.
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This is a dish to be made at the start of the New Year when the new olive oil has just been bottled. The carrots are cooked simply and act as a sweet and earthy foil to the bright and peppery pungent oil. The oil is drizzled in at the end as a seasoning with a few drops of vinegar and some parsley. If you do not have any olio nuovo, a bright and bold Tuscan oil would serve. This is one of those dishes where the combination is greater than the parts, and there is nowhere for inferior ingredients to hide, so fresh carrots, fresh oil, and good vinegar are all a must.
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There actually are no roasted mushrooms in this dressing. It gets its name from the fact that the trimmings from a recipe for roasted mushrooms are what is used to give this dressing its flavor, although you could roast the trimmings instead of sautéing them if you wish. This dressing would be nice on grilled or roasted fish topped with roasted oyster mushrooms and this dressing, with some baby mustard greens, mizuna, or arugula tossed in.
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This originally was made for a salad of cabbage, roast oyster mushrooms, and roast chicken, but would work with many other items as well. Try it on noodles, or for a light chicken salad with celery, carrot, water chestnuts, and pine nuts. This would be good with lightly sautéed cucumbers on a piece of roasted or gently sautéed fish, as well as on other salads.
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Quick and simple, but satisfying in its contrasts of flavors and textures. Be sure you are using Fuyu persimmons or you are in for a pucker surprise.
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Tagged with: avocado • celery • lettuce • little gem lettuce • nuts • persimmons • salad • vinaigrette
“Lemon Roasted” because Meyer lemon juice is used in the marinade for these. This is a dish that was designed for a cabbage and chicken salad, but could be used in soups, noodles, on fish, omelets, you name it. Try to find larger mushrooms for this, and using your hands to shred them means you will have rough edges that will caramelize beautifully. Trim the ends and any base clumps and save for making Roast Mushroom Dressing.
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This recipe uses a store bought roast chicken, but feel free to use leftover chicken if you have it. If you wish, substitute soba or udon for the ramen, as each noodle type has something to offer to this dish. A Ben-Riner or other fixed blade slicer makes this dish a lot easier to prep. Thin slices help keep cooking time down.
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This is a satisfying main course salad with plenty of crunch and lots of umami flavor, thanks to the roasted mushrooms and the roasted chicken. This recipe is based around the roasted chickens you find at the store or any leftover chicken you have on hand. Using a Ben-Riner or other fixed blade slicer makes the prep for this salad fly. You could even slice the vegetables the day before and bag or box them until needed. Tearing the mushrooms with your hands is quick and leaves lots of edges to crisp up and add texture to the dish.
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Tagged with: cabbage • carrots • celery • chicken • lemon • lettuce • Meyer lemon • mushrooms • oyster mushrooms • salad
INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons cider vinegar 2 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar 1 tablespoon apple cider 1 teaspoon honey mustard or Dijon style mustardContinue reading »
This is a fairly straight forward iteration of this classic. Many versions include tomatoes, onions, chilies, cilantro, some even add beans or diced vegetables, but this one only has a little garlic, some spices, and a little lime juice. Eat this straight with chips or use it as a topping for quesadillas, eggs, or whatever strikes your fancy. You can make this smooth or chunky.
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This is a variation on a theme for soup we call “Monday Soup”, which is a hearty vegetable soup, usually with sausage added, that can be eaten for 2-3 days after for lunches or whenever. This one uses a fair amount of fennel, and so will be a little sweet, which is countered by the greens and with vinegar added at the end.
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Tagged with: beans • braising mix • butternut squash • Carnival squash • carrots • celery • chard • fennel • grains • kale • mushrooms • soup • swiss chard • winter squash
The “Sweet and Sour” in this dish comes from the apple cider and cider vinegar employed to sauce the greens. This is a fairly quick dish to cook, and the flavors go well with richer dished or will cut through the fog of a head cold also. The sweetness of the dish is cut by the sharpness of the greens themselves, and the acid of the Granny Smith apples and the vinegar.
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