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For once we’ve got a lush dill crop, the key apparently being that clever combination of good sunlight and good drainage. Only problem has been a lack of garden partners, so for most of the season we’ve been chopping the herb into piccata sauces — simple amalgams of lemon, butter, and dill served over sauteed chicken breasts or grilled fish, a throwback to Charlie’s New England childhood.
That’s until this week, when the first cucumbers came ready, and just in time for dill to send up its yellow umbrels. So the overlap with cukes won’t be more than ten days or so, but still. It’s enough time for tasty cucumber salads dressed with this easy dill-yogurt sauce adapted from the incomparable Deborah Madison. The sauce is also terrific with fried rounds of eggplant, available now at the farmers market.
A couple of tricks here in your prep. First is to drain the yogurt of whey using a fine-mesh strainer, which yields a thickened yogurt ‘cheese’ — I find that homemade yogurt releases a fair quantity of whey, and straining firms things considerably. Alternately opt for a store brand like Nancy’s Organic Yogurt, which comes almost as thick as the Greek stuff, which gains body from fat. Second trick is to pound the garlic to a pulp with a bit of salt, which mellows the flavor and diffuses it more evenly through the sauce.
Recipe: Dill-Yogurt Sauce
½ cup plain yogurt / 1 small clove garlic / ¼ tsp salt / 1 tbls dill, chopped finely / pinch cayenne
Drain yogurt in a fine mesh strainer until fairly firm, about 30 minutes. Pound garlic with salt and add to yogurt when yogurt is fully drained. Stir in dill and cayenne, correct for salt, and chill for 30 minutes before serving tossed with sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, and feta, or atop fried eggplant. Makes ½ cup. It’s best on the day it’s prepared.
Our hot-house plants are finally starting to respond to Alaska’s long summer days. First to harvest was basil, which went directly into a what’s-in-the-pantry pesto sauce:
Pesto (double batch)
2/3 cup of chopped fresh basil / 4 cloves crushed garlic / 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese / 1 cup olive oil / walnuts / fresh ground pepper
Blend ingredients in a food processor or blender until (mostly) smooth. I ended up using walnuts in this recipe because there were no pine nuts or cashews in the house. Serve with pasta.
After dinner, we freeze the remaining pesto sauce in an ice cube tray to preserve it in single-serving units.
A few warm days and the overwintered parsley is sending up umbrels, those harbingers that the end is nigh. It was time to shift into a mindset of abundance, a sudden and welcome transition after winter’s scarcities, kale notwithstanding. In fact all of the herbs are growing at top speed these days, and standing in the backyard garden my thoughts jumped right to the Mediterranean — a plate of falafel, creamy with chickpeas and green with parsley, eaten with a minted yogurt, since there’s no scarcity in that department either right now.
Add in herbed meatballs mixed with parsley, mint, and oregano, plus a salad of arugula and baby greens, and you’ve got a nice little dinner on your hands. And one that’s pretty darn local, if I do say so myself.
But the cooking wasn’t quite as easy or smooth as my imagination made it out to be. On first go ’round, I found that frying falafel was like frying ice cream; they just melted into the hot oil. A bit of internet research led to an overnight chill for the falafel batter plus a deeper pot of hot oil, and voila. By then dinner was just a memory, but the falafel balls made a lovely lunch tucked into a pita and eaten, you guessed it, with more minted yogurt.
Falafel
1 cup cooked chickpeas / 1 clove garlic / ½ onion, coarsely chopped / 1 tsp cumin / ½ tsp coriander / pinch cayenne / ¼ cup parsley, chopped / salt & pepper / lemon juice / flour
Combine first 7 ingredients in a food processor and process until pureed. Add bean liquid sparingly if needed. Stir in salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste. Chill for at least one hour.
Heat 2 inches of oil in a heavy pot to 350 degrees and maintain at 350-375 degrees. Alternately, a bit of batter dropped in the oil should sink to the bottom then rise. Form falafel mix into 1½-inch balls. Mix should not stick significantly to your hands. If it does, add flour by the tablespoon until stickiness goes away. Roll balls in flour, then drop in hot oil and cook until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Serve right away. Feeds 3-4.
Minted Yogurt
1 clove garlic / ¼ tsp salt / 1 cup plain yogurt / 2 tbls mint, finely minced / pinch cayenne
Mash garlic and salt into a paste. Stir together with yogurt, mint, cayenne, and refrigerate for at least half a hour before serving.
The information superhighway is packed with claims of how easy it is to make scallion pancakes, a Chinese street vendor food. Not so fast. What’s easy are pa jun, the eggy Korean pancakes with minced alliums or vegetables added to the batter. Pa jun are similar to crepes and can be made in a matter of minutes — perfect when you suddenly find yourself in need of something hot, fried, and salty. Check out the New York Times’ recipe for details.
By contrast, scallion pancakes take at least an hour to make. The process involves kneading, resting, rolling, and twisting, followed by more resting and more rolling. But the result is a crispy, oniony, slightly chewy bread that takes hot, fried, and salty to a new level. Check out Seattle food writer Matthew Amster-Burton’s essay on scallion pancakes for a sense of all that is involved. Here’s my recipe, adapted for the bright green bundles of chives in the garden right now:
This weekend while sawing back Ceanothus branches that fell onto the patio during the December snowstorms, I glanced over and saw this:
Closer inspection of the herb garden revealed that not only were chives up and kicking, but a flush of tarragon buds have broken through the ground and last year’s marjoram plant — an annual, to my knowledge — is sprouting green growth at the crown. Which means that it’s barely Februrary and I’m behind in the garden. Already. Good thing the perennials more or less take care of themselves. Now to figure out the year’s flower and vegetable plantings.
Weeks of travel, long work days, and things were starting to slip around here — we’re talking reheated frozen sauces over pasta, a pork tenderloin from Costco, the sort of passable cooking you get by on. That was not going to work for dinner on New Year’s. Time to get my game back on, and this ravioli fit the bill perfectly. It’s made from mostly local ingredients, including lots of herbs from the garden, and pasta that’s handmade from local eggs and Northwest flour.
Like anything with fresh pasta, of course, this recipe requires something of a time commitment, or speed things up using sheets of purchased fresh pasta dough. Once the raviolis are sealed and floured, the cooking goes quickly. And the eating goes fast too if you don’t pace yourself.
We savored ours with a glass of champagne. If you can’t do ravioli this time, consider making a risotto using these sturdy winter flavors.
Recipe: Butternut Squash Ravioli with Herb Butter Sauce
Fresh pasta dough made of 2 eggs & 1 cup flour, or purchased / 1 cup pureed butternut squash / 2 tbls goat cheese / ¼ cup breadcrumbs / 2 tsp fresh thyme, finely minced / 4 tbls butter / 1 tbls fresh parsley, finely minced / 1 tbls fresh sage, finely minced / salt & pepper / ¼ cup toasted hazelnuts, minced, optional / Parmesan cheese, optional
Prepare the pasta dough by mixing together then kneading the eggs and flour for 8 minutes. Roll out on to your pasta machine’s thinnest setting, sprinkle with flour, then set aside. Mix together squash, goat cheese, breadcrumbs, and 1 tsp thyme. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Assemble raviolis, using a generous teaspoonful of squash filling per ravioli. Bring water to a boil and cook raviolis 4-5 minutes, until al dente, then drain.
Meanwhile, melt butter with sage, parsley, and remaining thyme in a pan over medium heat and cook until butter is bubbling and starting to brown. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Toss cooked ravioli with butter sauce, plate, and sprinkle with more pepper plus hazelnuts and Parmesan cheese if you like. Makes about 40 ravioli. Adapted from Deborah Madison (goddess).
Sourcing: Eggs and winter squash from multiple local producers. Hazelnuts from Holmquist Farms in Lynden, Wash. Goat cheese from Port Madison and others. Fresh pasta from La Pasta, available at the University (Saturday) farmers market. Parsley, sage, and thyme keep their foliage through Seattle winters — and ours weather the recent storms without too much trouble. And repurpose that day-old bread for fresh breadcrumbs.
I’m in a panic. Frost has hit hard just north of here, which means time is running out for fresh tarragon, my favorite herbaceous perennial. I’ve considered freezing little cubes of the leaves as some crafty folk do, but the freezer’s a black hole these days. Next best option is finding last-minute cooking opportunities like this creamy mushroom soup, whose earthy smoothness pairs well with tarragon’s licorice bite. And bonus, the soup does good things using mostly local ingredients. Recent posts from Fat of the Land and Skagit Foodshed show some of the luscious wild mushrooms you can find in the woods right now, if you’re willing to get a little muddy. Here in the thick of civilization, we buy dried porcini from Foraged and Found at the University District farmers market and just a smidge goes a long way.
Cream of Mushroom Soup with Tarragon
4-5 slices dried porcini / 1 tbls butter / 1 tbls lardo or salt pork minced, optional / ½ onion, minced / 1 clove garlic, minced / 1 lb fresh mushrooms, chopped / 6-8 sprigs thyme, leaves stripped / big pinch of flour / 3 cups stock or water / ¼ cup cream / salt & pepper / 2 tbls chopped tarragon
Soak dried porcini in hot water. When softened, chop reconstituted mushroom slices. Strain and reserve soaking liquid. Heat a heavy soup pot over medium heat and swirl in butter. When hot, add salt pork, onion and garlic, cooking until softened, 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and thyme. Cook, stirring, until mushrooms have given up most of their juice. Sprinkle in a big pinch of flour and stir, cooking for another minute. Add chopped porcini and soaking liquid plus stock or water. Boil, then turn down heat and cook on medium-low for 15 minutes, until flavors are combined. Transfer most of soup to a food processor and puree until smooth, then return to pot, or use a fancy immersion blender if you have one. Stir in cream, season with salt and pepper, and serve garnished with chopped tarragon leaves. Feeds 2-4, depending on appetites.
For an even heartier soup, substitute ¼ cup rice for the flour and cook for 25 minutes, until rice is tender.
The cashews aren’t local, but they were in the cupboard and slowly getting stale, so I offset their carbon bite with ingredients from the backyard. The cashews lend a little bit of richness and the rosemary adds an unexpectedly savory tie between the nuts and zukes, making for a tasty vegetarian lunch. Add a bit of roast chicken for an omnivorous slant, if you like.
Recipe: Zucchini, Cashew, and Rosemary Pasta
Dry pasta for 2 / 6″stem rosemary /olive oil / 2 cloves garlic / ½ tsp salt / 1 cup zucchini, sliced / ¼ cup cashews, chopped / parmesan cheese, to taste / cracked black pepper
Boil water and cook the pasta. Blanch the rosemary stem in the boiling pasta water for about 30 seconds, then strip leaves and mince. About two minutes before the pasta is finished, add zucchini slices to the pasta water. When done, drain in a colander. Meanwhile, heat 3 tbls olive oil over medium heat in a small saucepan. Pound garlic and salt together with a mortar and pestle to make a paste. Heat the paste and minced rosemary in the warm oil, removing from heat when the garlic loses its raw scent. Toss pasta and zucchini with garlicky olive oil plus cashews, parmesan, and pepper. Feeds 2.
My old friend was back in town, delivering a high-profile talk at a scientific meeting. We’d been roommates way back when, before she moved on to pursue bigger fish in bigger ponds. Now she waxed nostalgic and talked about moving home for good. The time was right to take advantage of her vulnerability, to ply her with the sort of food that reminds a gal where her heart really lies. So we cooked up a big dinner with loads of herbs like we used to do, but using upgraded ingredients. The offerings included trap-caught Alaskan cod, eaten with thin slices of lardo and a tangy herb salad. We ate chard braised with cilantro, rich polenta that oozed sweet marjoram. With herbs this time of year, it’s just a matter of reaching into the garden and swiping what looks good.
Recipe: Pan Fried Cod with Herb Salad
1½ lbs firm white fish such as halibut or cod / olive oil / salt & pepper / 1 shallot, sliced thinly / 2 tsp sherry vinegar / ½ cup fresh mint leaves / ¼ cup fresh tarragon leaves / ½ cup sorrel / 2 tbl chives, minced / 1 tsp lemon zest / 2 oz. lardo or other cured pork, shaved into thin slices, optional
Thirty minutes in advance, rinse shallot slices in cold water, drain, then add vinegar and toss. Rinse fish and pat dry, then gently rub in 3 tbs of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Set aside.
When shallot has mellowed, finely chop mint, tarragon, and sorrel leaves. Combine chopped herbs with chives and lemon zest. Heat oil or render half of shaved lardo in a heavy skillet over high heat. When the pan is hot, add fish and cook until flesh just flakes, about 3 minutes per side, then remove from pan. Turn heat down and cook remaining lardo slices until just brown and crisp, about 3 minutes. Toss herb leaves with shallots, adding additional olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste. Place crisped lardo atop fish, then cover generously with herb salad. Serve immediately. Feeds 4. Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld.
How fabulous was it to come home from work to Charlie’s egg salad sandwiches, made from eggs laid a couple neighborhoods over? His whip includes a big pinch of paprika, and we spooned the salad onto the pepper-potato bagels I love so much. My contribution was the spicy green stuff that’s everywhere in the garden these days. We ate out back, basking in the sunshine, and watched the tomatoes grow.
Peppery Egg Salad
4 eggs, hard-boiled / 2 tbl minced onion / 1 tsp minced fresh parsley / 1 tsp minced fresh oregano / 2 tbl mayonnaise / 1 tbl dijon mustard / big pinch paprika, or to taste / salt & pepper / handful of arugula leaves / 4 slices rustic bread, pita, or whatever you wish / chopped black olives
Gently mix together the first seven ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place arugula on bread, add egg salad and top with olives. Serve open-faced. Feeds 2. Variations are truly endless, consider substituting in homemade mayonnaise if that’s your thing or adding minced pickles.
