Soba Noodle Salad

This week I realized something: I suck at grocery shopping.

I don’t suck at cooking, but I need something to cook against. I need a constraint—a limit on time or ingredients, or a request to fulfill, or a combination of dietary restrictions to take into account. Otherwise, with no rules and endless possibilities, my response is to give up and eat a cheese sandwich over the sink while swigging milk straight from the carton.

If I just had interesting food, I could cook it! But the malaise starts at the grocery store. No particular item stands out to me. They all look equally attractive; I want all of them; then, ultimately, I want none of them. Many times I’ve left even the farmer’s market empty-handed because I couldn’t decide which thing I wanted over all the others.

That’s why I’m so glad I got my CSA information in the mail this weekend. Soon someone will decide for me! Food will happen to me, I will react to it, and it will be delicious. I’m already daydreaming about the first deliveries: lettuce, radishes, spring onions, maybe some pea pods. And that’s when I realize… hey, I’m actually developing a craving for fresh things, sprouting and green…

I have to go grocery shopping!

Soba Noodle Salad
This recipe (which came off the back of a box) called for edamame, spinach, and red onion. That would be good, too; but I switched some vegetables, fixed the dressing a little, and adjusted the proportions. This will serve four people as a main course or six as a side dish.

Salad parts
1 package extra-firm tofu
A double handful of snow peas
A double handful of bean sprouts
2 scallions, sliced
Peanut or canola oil
A packgage (250g, about 8 or 9 oz) of soba noodles
1 T sesame oil
2 T crushed nori or toasted sesame seeds for garnish

Dressing
3 T sesame oil
2 T rice vinegar
2 T mirin
1 t sugar or agave syrup
3 T soy sauce
½ t minced fresh ginger or 1 t minced pickled ginger

Put the tofu on a plate, put another plate on top, and put a heavy can on top of that. You’ll leave this for 15-20 minutes to press out some extra water.

Meanwhile, clean the snow peas and cut them diagonally into 1” pieces. Slice the scallions and measure out your bean sprouts. Put these all in a big bowl. Mince the ginger and mix it with the other dressing ingredients in a little bowl and set aside.

Put a pot of water on to boil.

Slice the tofu brick into four sheets, then cut the sheets into sixteenths. You’ll end up with domino-shaped pieces about 1" x 1½" x ¼".

If your water is boiling yet, then break the soba noodles in half and pop them in the pot. They will only cook for about six minutes, so watch them!

Brush a baking sheet with peanut oil. Lay each tofu slice on the sheet, then flip it over to coat it. Broil the tofu pieces until golden, about 6-8 minutes. Flip them over with chopsticks and broil until the other side is golden. Allow to cool.

Meanwhile, your noodles will have finished cooking. When they’re ready, drain them in a colander and rinse them with cold water to cool them. Shake them off and toss them with 1T of sesame oil. Set aside to drain some more.

When the tofu is cool, it’s as good a time as any to mix the salad. Put the noodles and tofu in the big bowl with the vegetables and pour the dressing over them. Mix everything up well; your hands work very well. Transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with the garnish.

Just Sayin'

Scrambled eggs, gravlax with mustard dill sauce (thanks to my colleague Sue and her Danish-born loved ones), and a big pile of spring mix.

Just sayin'

Grilled salmon; romaine salad with strawberries, lavender, rosemary, and balsamic vinaigrette; fresh bread with olive oil, sea salt, and cracked pepper.

Mustard Jar Redemption

I’m really sorry I didn’t take the picture earlier. This is all that was left by the time I got back to the kitchen from grilling the brats. The other diners were merciless; they took no prisoners.

At least they didn’t take the last spoonful of potato salad, too. Even if they had, I would be too busy being proud of my recipe to get upset. I like this one for two reasons:

1. It is fresh, simple, and immediate. There are only a handful of ingredients, but the vegetables can be locally grown and soon they’ll all be in season together.
2. The dressing is a great way to finish off a jar of mustard.

No, really. You know when there is only a little bit of mustard at the bottom of the jar or bottle? You can go in there with a knife and scrape all day. The jar will ring like a bell but you will not get enough mustard to season a sandwich. You can shake the bottle for twenty minutes but all you can get out of it are rude noises. But since there’s still a bunch of mustard stuck to the sides of the container, you stick it back in the fridge. “Stupid mustard,” you think to yourself. “I wish I had the cunning to use you up or the courage to throw you out.”

Well this salad dressing will take care of it for you! There’s probably just the right amount of mustard left in the jar. Take off the lid, put in the rest of the dressing ingredients, and shake. You will get a delicious salad dressing. You will clean up the container so it is fit to go in with the recycling. And you will have used up the last of that mustard. Aaah, closure!

Potato Salad with Dijon Dressing
Serves 6 to 8.

1 ½ lb potatoes (new red potatoes are great), scrubbed and cut in chunks
½ lb asparagus or green beans, snapped into 1” pieces
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T red wine vinegar
2 T lemon juice
1/3 c olive oil
3 T dill leaves, coarsely chopped
1 T capers

Boil the potatoes until just tender, about 20-25 minutes. In the last few minutes of cooking, throw the asparagus or green beans into the pot.
Drain the vegetables and plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking. Drain well. Chill.

Shake the mustard, vinegar, lemon juice, and oil until combined.

Close to serving time, toss the vegetables with the dill, the capers, and the dressing. If you leave the salad sitting in its dressing, the potatoes will absorb much of the liquid. Who knows; maybe you like that sort of thing.

Heard it in a love song

...about spinach and watercress tossed with honey mustard dressing.

Cain't be wrong.

Big Goddamn Steak Night!

My favorite holiday of the year is one I made up: Big Goddamn Steak and Bucketful of Whiskey Night—or just Big Goddamn Steak Night for short. It's an annual dinner party of food movie proportions: my own little Big Night.

Originally a thirtieth birthday party for my best friend, this decade-long tradition has become a night of big songs, big toasts, big personalities, and big steaks. Not all the steaks are made of beef; vegetarians and carnivores alike sit down at the big table. Not everyone drinks the whiskey sours that flow like tap water from the big pitcher. Literal adherence to the theme is not as important as the spirit of friendship, epicureanism, and ribald snarkiness. That's the true meaning of Big Goddamn Steak Night.

BGDSN is BYOM—bring your own meat. As guests arrive, they pile their steaks on the kitchen counter. When everyone is present, I grill the steaks to order. People who request their steaks cooked more than medium are teased.

If there's anything more fun than the meal that follows, I don't know what it is. The traditional side dishes are passed around and devoured. We sporadically interrupt our conversation to sing something from the Big Goddamn Steak Night songbook, which tends to grow ever year as new songs are invented or introduced from elsewhere.

Dessert is the time to begin calling friends and family in different time zones. Often these individuals are eating big steaks, too. We sing songs and exchange congratulations. (My parents get a call earlier in the day warning them to turn off their phone before going to bed.)

After dinner, we usually compose haikus or listen to a dramatic reading. That sounds so literary, doesn't it? Except the haikus are all about steak and whiskey, and the readings are from young adult novels of questionable moral value. Or maybe we dance to the cheesy funk music playing on the stereo.

When the last guest has departed and all is quiet except the ringing in my ears, I look at my debauched table and smile. I am so thankful for my friends and for the fun we've had. I am the luckiest big goddamn steak in the world.

Big Goddamn Menu
I invite you to hold your own BGDSN whenever you're up for a big party. Mine is the Saturday closest to November 15.
Bucket of Whiskey Sours
Bring Your Own Meat
Big Goddamn Salad
Five (expletive deleted) Pounds of Mashed Potatoes
A Tiramisú as Big as You



The whiskey sours are made with Canadian whiskey and Sunkist Sparkling Lemonade in a 1:1 ratio. I know. We don't pull any punches on BGDSN.

The salad is always romaine lettuce with balsamic vinaigrette. This year it included sunflower seeds and some red pear slices that had been macerated briefly in lemon juice.

Yes, the potatoes have a crass title that I will not repeat here. They are Yukon Golds scrubbed well, sliced up with their skins on, and boiled. Then I mash them with butter, sour cream, sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, olive oil, and two heads of roasted garlic. Mmm-hmm. We save the goofing around for the dinner table.

I make the tiramisú with chocolate cake instead of the conventional ladyfingers. It's so good, makes you want to call your mom. Unless she's sitting right next to you, as mine is some years. Then it makes us both want to call Grandma.

Mangiamo!

Circle Salad

“You know, I can still remember when we found this salad,” Beth said, fork poised over our favorite early-autumn meal.

It was on a trip to New York. We wandered around in that city with its thousands of food options—so many you could starve to death trying to choose what to eat. That’s what was happening to us as we stumbled through neighborhoods, just a doubt away from being lost. And creeping up on us was the indecisive fog that comes with having postponed lunch too long.

Pausing smack in the middle of the sidewalk, blinking owlishly, we presented maximum obstruction to the annoyed pedestrians elbowing past us. I looked up and saw a storefront name I knew from a previous visit: Le Pain Quotidien. “Daily Bread.” I grabbed Beth’s arm and pulled her into the familiar restaurant.

The salad they brought us—well, we fell in love with it instantly. A pesto-lime dressing clung to fresh mixed greens piled in a circle of colorful roasted vegetable slices and medallions of chevre. It was a perfect balance of sweet and tangy, soft and crunchy, bright tastes and deep ones. Quite simply, it’s beets, squash, cheese, and greens holding hands and singing.

“We should remember this salad,” I told Beth. “We could make it at home.” And we do, every autumn, when beets and squash come to market and before summer’s basil and lettuces fade away. Whenever I announce that I’m making “the circles,” I’m always greeted with appreciation and approval.

There’s only one problem with circle salad, and it played itself out at the end of the meal tonight. Beth sat scowling at the scrap of lettuce and single bite each of cheese, beet, and squash on her plate. “I can’t decide what I want to taste last.”

Guess I’ll just have to make it again soon.

Circle Salad
I don’t remember what Le Pain Quotidien called this salad. Probably something more French and less prosaic.

1 butternut squash – it should have a 3-4”, narrow neck if possible.
4 golf ball sized beets
Olive oil for brushing on vegetables
4 oz chevre
4-5 c mixed baby field greens

The dressing:
1 c loosely packed fresh basil leaves
2-3 T pine nuts
¼ c grated Parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic
¼ t fresh ground black pepper
¼ - ½ c olive oil
Juice of one lime
Salt to taste

Heat the oven to 400°. Peel the squash and cut the neck into 12 slices, each about ¼” thick. Brush with olive oil and lay them on a cookie sheet. Brush the beets with oil and wrap them individually in aluminum foil. You can put them on a cookie sheet, too, or set them directly on the oven rack. Roast the beets and squash for 25-35 minutes or until they are easily pierced with a fork. Remove from oven and cool.

Slip the skins off the beets, trim off their tops and tails, and cut each beet into three crosswise slices.

Divide the room-temperature chevre into 12 equal pieces. Roll each portion into a ball and flatten into a disk. Refrigerate the disks to firm them up.

Run all the dressing ingredients in a blender or food processor until they are a pourable paste, thinner than pesto but still rough-textured. Add extra oil if necessary to keep things flowing smoothly.

Get out four plates. On each plate, arrange three pieces of chevre as if you are marking off the corners of an equilateral triangle. Follow with three slices of squash, each placed to the left of a chevre circle. Finish with three slices of beet. Do them in this order to decrease the chance of beet juice mishaps.

Reserve two or three teaspoons of the dressing. Toss the greens with the remaining dressing and pile them in the center of each plate. Drizzle a bit of the reserved dressing over each slice of chevre.

Bon appétit!