Zucchini Fritter Omelet
from Roy Choi's L.A. Son
Squash gets a uniquely lovely flavor when you slice it into a skillet with a litle oil, add a bit of salt, then cook it down to a mush. My mother called it "fried squash" and it was only much later in life that I tried the experiment of breading the slices and frying them in oil, like eggplant. Most people would consider the latter method a correct approach to frying squash, but not me. I only did it because it was a way to get my children to eat squash.
And all that goes to explain why this dish pleased me so much. The delicate, sweet, and overwhelmingly squashy flavor was a throwback to childhood meals. I don't feel comfortable printing the recipe here, but this is the gist of it: grate a squash, cook in olive oil until brown. Add butter and eggs to make an omelet of it. Eat immediately.
Note: He called for 4 tablespoons of olive oil for 2 medium zucchini. Inconceivable. Did he really measure out that much oil, or just drizzle some in? But no--he's a chef--he wouldn't need to measure to know how much oil he was using. Needless to say, I used about 1/2 of one tablespoon and was happy with the results.
I could imagine myself retired, living quietly in a cottage with a small garden out back, making this for a delightful summer breakfast...eating it on the back porch with a cup of coffee, some toast...dogs at my feet hoping for leftovers...birds singing the sun up....
Instead I chucked it in a plastic dish and took it to work next day. Still tasted good but I missed the birds.
Slow-Braised Carrots
from Ingredienti by Marcella Hazen
I wanted to improve some late carrots from the garden--they should have been pulled months ago--so I tried the Marcella treatment. Braise in butter and a little water for a long, long time. It didn't work--they were too far gone. I'll try roasting the rest of them.
Cool Cucumber-Herb Dip
Shows promise, but doesn't use up much of a pint box of cucumbers. It called for 1/2 cup cucumber to 1 cup sour cream, but you chop up the cucumber and throw away the liquid, leaving more like two tablespoons. I couldn't taste them.
Original ingredients
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1 Tbsp diced shallot
1/2 cup chopped cucumber, seeds removed
1 cup low-fat sour cream
1 tsp white-wine vinegar
1 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 Tbsp chopped fresh chives
1/4 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper (If you want everything you eat to taste like pepper.)
I'd like to try again using twice the amount of cucumber and just enough fake sour cream to hold it together.
WARNING! Author is about to go off on an inane tangent!
Consider two sample recipes, cooked last weekend.
Recipe 1
Ingredients:
1 shallot, diced, 1/2 cup chopped cucumber, ...
Method:
In a food processor, combine shallot and cucumber; ...
Recipe 2
Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped, 1 shallot, sliced, 1 fresh hot red chile, seeded and roughly chopped...
Method:
In a blender or mini food processor, combine garlic, shallot, chile...
What's weird about these recipes? (And countless others)
Answer: They want you to waste time dicing, chopping, or slicing things that you're about to throw into a food processor and pulverize to a paste. Is it really going to make a difference in the final product if I dice the dumb shallot or just throw it in whole? Am I being stupid to ask the question? Let's go to The Great Google--
America's Test Kitchen says,
Luckily, a good food processor permits you to put down your knives (and your mandoline and your grater)--the food processor will act as your prep cook. You'll get more uniform results while saving time, energy, and your sanity.
Maybe I didn't google the question right, but the answers I got were all on the order of, "use the food processor to speed up your chopping." Not a single one explained why I needed to hand-process the stuff before food-processing it.
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