Some Stuff I've Been Cooking — June 2023

I'm entering my Ixta Belfrage era.

My kitchen has been humming over the last few weeks. I’ve revisited some favorite recipes and tried out new ones.  Let’s take a look.

Shrimp with herbs

One of my favorite recipes by Mark Bittman is his vibrantly colored Shrimp in Green Sauce.  The method is simple: puree parsley, garlic, scallions, and olive oil in a food processor.  Add some stock or wine, and then add the mixture to a baking dish full of shrimp.  Roast for 20 at a high temp and then enjoy.

Recently I decided to do a switch up.  While I enjoy the simplicity of the baking dish method, I really didn’t feel like preheating my oven.  Instead, I seared the shrimp for a on both sides and added the green sauce for the final minute of cooking.  So much faster and easier than dealing with an oven.

Also of note when making the sauce:  I just add anything that’s green.  That includes cilantro and green garlic, both of which I had on hand and employed liberally.  Additionally, the original recipe does not call for seasoning the sauce, instead instructing users to toss the sauce with the shrimp and salt and pepper and chiles.  That’s fine and all, but there’s no way to check for seasoning if raw shrimp are involved.  Don’t be a literalist with the rules: season with salt before the sauce is out of the food processor.  It makes all the difference.  (Oh, and season your shrimp too — I’m a firm believer that proteins can’t coast off a sauce’s seasoning).

Lemon Golden Cake with Clovers

I’ve been super excited about my new Norwegian baking book (titled, unsurprisingly, Norwegian Baking Through the Seasons), and a few weeks ago I finally had the opportunity to dive into it.  My first project:  lemon golden cake with clovers.  First and foremost, I did not forage for clovers to make this cake, nor did I source the edible flowers that author Nevada Berg suggests using as a sub.  Despite that, this lemon cake had a surprisingly floral quality to it. I’m not really sure where that came from, but I wasn’t made about it.

There were, however, a few problems.  First, my oven is out of control.  It keeps destroying cakes.  Despite pulling the cake ahead of schedule and baking at what I thought was a lower temp, the cake was still pretty dry.  What a bummer for a first attempt from the book.

And then there was the glaze.  In my excitement to get this cake to the table, I cobbled all the ingredients together, forgetting that glazes need to be assembled slowly and under careful observation.  A useful glaze needs a perfect consistency: thin enough to slowly drip halfway down the sides of a cake (especially a Bundt), but thick enough not to slide off the sponge and pool at the bottom.  Welp, my glaze was the latter.  I could have thickened it by adding more powdered sugar, but that would have made it way too sweet.  I just had to deal with it.

Ultimately, this cake was dry, and the runny glaze didn’t help. Flavor-wise, I enjoyed it.  Again, the floral notes were a surprise — and I’m not totally sure where they came from.  Maybe my brain? Maybe I just wanted to will a clover-like experience onto my palate.  When all was said and done though, I was a bit disappointed in not just my mistakes, but also my curation.  Of all the interesting and fascinating cakes in this Norwegian book, why did I go for such a standard lemon cake? Especially when Yossy Arefi already has an exemplary version in Snacking Cakes.  I don’t know the answers to these existential questions, but I can declare that next time I dive into Norwegian Baking, I’m trying something more ambitious and more unique (which is literally every single other recipe).

One upside: a day later, the cake had gone from slightly dry to very dry. It was too pretty to chuck; so I sliced it up and made it the base of a vanilla ice cream cake, à la Alison Roman. Worked out great.

Roasted Carrots with hot green tahini

Two friends came over recently to cook a meal and watch the series finale of Succession.  Our menu featured three dishes from the Ottolenghi extended universe (which includes the cookbooks Mezcla from Ixta Belfrage, OTK: Shelf Love, and OTK: Extra Good Things) — more on those later.  The only non-‘lenghi dish was this simple carrot recipe from newly minted James Beard winner Andy Baraghani and his book The Cook You Want To Be.  It’s a simple carrot roast, which I attempted in the air fryer. I overstuffed the basket; so some of the carrots were under.  No biggie.  The real star, however, was not the carrots but rather the titular hot green tahini.  This simple mixture involved blending tahini, chiles, lemon, garlic, olive oil, and soft herbs in a food processor, resulting in a tangy, feisty condiment.  Let me emphasize something: the tahini was seriously amazing.  And while I don’t enjoy subrecipes in cookbooks, this tahini is worth it.

Fun bonus: I had enough tahini left over that I tried the dish again a few night later, this time with a smaller batch of carrots.  Glad I did this because the air fryer really rose to the occasion, yielding wonderfully sweet, crisp, and tender carrots. I think this is going in the veg rotation.

Corn Dutch Baby

This looks like a flat disk, but it actually has a raised rim.

From the pages of OTK: Shelf Love, the picture of this corn Dutch baby stopped us in our tracks.  We knew we just had to include this recipe for our Succession finale night. Dutch babies are inherently delightful things to make, but add the joys of corn, and this concept becomes downright irresistible.

Our version didn’t have a dramatic ring like a typical Dutch baby, but that may have been due to my temperamental Bertazzoni oven. Still, there was definitely a shape to it; even if it’s not terribly evident from my photos.

I adored this Dutch baby. It hit all the notes I wanted from it:  sweet, savory, and corny.  The recipe yields a salsa as well as a slaw, both adding a distinctly Southwestern vibe to the dish. This was incredibly satisfying and filling. Who doesn’t love an excuse to make a Dutch baby?

Sweet and Sour Celery Salad

I bought the aforementioned Mezcla by Ixta Belfrage a few months ago and have been incredibly eager to try recipes from it, mainly because the flavor combinations are so wild that I just can’t imagine how they work. Case in point: this sweet and sour celery salad which features soy sauce, basil, seared (!!) celery, maple syrup, raisins, pine nuts, and ricotta.  So crazy we had to try it.  Glad we did!  This wacky salad upstaged the formidable corn Dutch baby (I mean, how does a CORN DUTCH BABY get upstaged by celery??).  I think I’m entering my Ixta era now.

Scallops with Curried Onions

Also from Mezcla, these scallops require a lengthy first act (caramelizing onions, which always takes 10-15 minutes longer than cookbooks state) followed by a swift second act (searing scallops).  We didn’t achieve the sumptuous browning on the scallops that we were hoping for, but WHO EFFING CARES? This dish was divine.  The scallops, onions, curry powder, and lime worked beautifully together.  I couldn’t stop shoveling the scallops into my mouth.  One downside: my entire home smelled like curry powder for about twelve hours.  Worth it though.

Farro and charred corn salad

I love a corn salad.  To be honest, I love a corn anything (see above mouth foaming over the Dutch baby).  Molly Baz has a fun corn and farro salad in her book Cook This Book, and I decided to give it a whirl. The main ingredients:  corn and farro (duh), shery vinegar, honey, red onion, queso fresco, almonds, and basil.  The best way to describe this dish is that it trends Southwestern but also keeps one foot in a Barefoot Contessa space too.  I enjoyed it quite a bit.  It might not have been my favorite take on a corn salad, but that’s only because I don’t think the farro was wholly necessary.  Also, I prefer lime juice as my acid of choice with corn.  Still, I dug this dish, I ate it for days on end, and I would happily make it again.

Pastrami chicken

From the same cookbook comes Molly Baz’s pastrami chicken.  I’m fairly certain I wrote about this dish in my chicken rundown (and of course now that I’ve taken the time to link to that post, I can confirm that I have mentioned this chicken before).  Some chickens deserve extra Substack love, and this one is it.  Just made this two nights ago, and I need to reassure planet Earth that this recipe is excellent.  It should be in everyone’s quiver. You will weep.

Chilaquiles

Chilaquiles are a classic Mexican dish that typically incorporates tortilla chips, salsa (or broth), and eggs. My experience with chilaquiles has always been as a breakfast item; although, I’m sure they’re served at any time of the day (notably, I’m a white guy from suburban NY; so please take any pontificating about Mexican cuisine with a grain of salt). I’ve made chilaquiles several times over the years, relying on various Internet recipes and cookbooks. The other day I decided to wing it, and I was deeply pleased with the results. First, I added olive oil to an 8” pan, followed by some leftover salsa from the corn Dutch baby. Once it was warmed, I tossed in a few handfuls of tortilla chips (currently I’m obsessed with Juantonio’s) and let them simmer and soften for a few minutes.

Before the chips went totally soggy, I cracked five eggs into the pan — almost like a shakshouka — and placed a lid on top. I cooked everything on a low flame for a few minutes, until the whites seemed firm but the yolks still jiggled when I shook the pan. Then I removed the lid, turned off the flame, and crumbled diced chives and queso fresco over everything. I also had some crème fraîche leftover from the Dutch baby; so I added a few blobs of that around the pan and finally drizzled some Cholula sauce over everything. The results were wonderful. The salsa and Cholula gave everything a bright tang while the tortilla chips provided both crispiness and body.

I don’t feel it’s my place to speak to the dish’s authenticity, but whatever it was that I made, I’m happy to report it was a delicious way to start the day. (oh, and I split this with my dad — for anyone who’s horrified at me thinking I ate this all by myself)

Cornmeal citrus cake

It’s been just over two years since I bought Snacking Cakes, and at the time I announced to anyone who would listen (which is not many people) that I was committing to a snacking cakes lifestyle. Happy to report I have maintained that lifestyle, much to the chagrin of my waistline.  I’m even happier to report that I have successful evangelized the book tirelessly — on my podcast, on this newsletter, on social media, and to all my friends and family (to the point where author Yossy Arefi told me in a message that she heard I was her unofficial publicist).  Between my friends and I, we have cooked nearly ever cake in the book, and one of my absolute favorites — as in, top 3 — is the citrusy almond cornmeal cake.

For starters, it’s gluten-free, which I don’t care about, but I know that makes some people happy.  More importantly, it is beyond delicious. A topping of sugar and almonds gives the sponge a welcome crisp texture, and a citrus syrup keeps everything moist for days on end. This time around, I used blood orange and tangelo, which was delightful.  I’ve never used or tasted tangelo before, and I’m here to report it tastes… like tangerine and pomelo.  WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK?  Anyway, love this cake.  Love this book.  Love this lifestyle.