WELL FED

PIMM'S CUP

Well people, I have exciting news.  It seems Mark and I have become home owners!  Yes that's right,  we bought a lovely, charming little house in an historic neighborhood of Los Angeles.  

Finally we'll have a nice, little, private backyard.  I suppose I'll need to get a grill.

I can't tell you how excited we are.  We've been looking for months and months and finally we find a place that's perfect for us.  

It's a great house with a generous living room, a FORMAL dining room (here come dinner parties) and even a sunny breakfast room right off the kitchen, which will become the official Well Fed head quarters.

I wish I could say the kitchen was fantastic.  Alas, it's not.  The cabinets are a little junky, not exactly in keeping with the vintage of the house and I wish there was a bit more counter space beside the stove.  But I like to look at it as an opportunity to really create a space that is optimal for my cooking needs.  As such, I think I'm going to broaden the scope of this blog to include periodic updates on the progress of our kitchen remodeling.  I hope you don't mind.

But before we get to all of that, let me talk about Pimm's Cups.  Almost a year ago, Annie and Pierson bought their house and the first time I came over, Annie and I had a toast to celebrate their purchase, and what we drank that day were Pimm's cups.  Fast forward a year to this past Tuesday when we got the keys to our place, Annie joined us for a cocktail to congratulate us, the cocktail being a Pimm's Cup. It's sort of become our official New House Warming Drink.

For those who don't know, Pimm's is a gin based alcohol favored by the Brits.  Resembling tea in color, the flavor is mildly spicy as well as citrusy.  It's one of the official drinks at Wimbledon, as well as polo matches and other upper crust, gentile sporting events.  Somehow I envision anything involving an expanse of green lawn and women wearing hats.  The makeup of the drink varies from recipe to recipe, but generally it includes lemonade and/or ginger ale and is garnished with refreshing slices of cucumber.  Often the lemonade is sparkling and additional garnishes of slices of lemon, lime, orange apple and strawberries.

When Annie and I had Pimm's Cups at her house, I took the easy way out and just brought over a bottle of Pimm's, organic sparkling lemonade and a baggie of cucumber slices.  This recipe sort of takes it to the next level.  It includes freshly squeezed, home-made lemonade, home-made ginger beer, mint, lime and thin ribbons of Persian cucumber.  I would caution against going overboard on the garnishes. Anything more than mint, cucumber and a slice of some sort of citrus becomes a little to fruit salady.  

INGREDIENTS

(for the ginger beer)

4 cups water

2/3 cup finely chopped peeled fresh ginger

3/4 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice

5 tablespoons light brown sugar

(for the lemonade)

3 cups freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained of any seeds

4 cups water

1 1/2 cups super fine sugar

(for the cocktail)

4 tablespoons Pimm's

4 tablespoons lemonade

2 tablespoon ginger beer

2 tablespoon club soda

sprigs of fresh mint

lemon and/or lime slices

cucumber ribbons or slices or both (to make ribbons, using a vegetable peeled, peel off slices of a small Persian cucumber lengthwise)

METHOD

First make the ginger beer.  In a medium sauce pan bring the water to a boil.  Remove from heat and add the ginger, lime juice and brown sugar.  Let steep for one hour and then strain out the solids.

While the ginger beer is steeping, make the lemonade.  In a large pitcher, combine the lemon juice, water and sugar.  Stir until the sugar dissolves.  Note that the lemonade recipe makes way more than you'll need for even several of these drinks.  You can halve the recipe, or you can just have lemonade on hand.  That's not such a bad thing.

To make the drink, combine the Pimm's, lemonade, ginger beer and club soda in a goblet or collins glass filled with ice.  Garnish with a sprig or two of mint, some slices of lemon and/or lime and the cucumber. 

Mercy this is an easy cocktail to drink.  Not too sweet, in fact with a hint of spiciness from the ginger beer, the Pimm's cup is perfect for a warm, sunny summer day.  Refreshing and light, you'll be tempted to down several but watch out, it IS potent.  It really is a great way to help someone celebrate a new home.  

POULET NICOISE

This past Sunday I was in quite the quandary.  You see, I had no idea what I wanted to make for dinner.  NO idea.  I hate when that happens.  I wanted to cook but nothing in particular sounded very good.  That kind of aimlessness is so frustrating.  Often at work my morning will get unexpectedly busy and then all of a sudden it's 1:30 and I have no idea what to do about lunch.  There are too many dining options in relatively close proximity to my office and when I'm that hungry I just can't chose.  I end up grazing in the kitchen and making a meal out of Powerbars and Baked Doritos.

What I'm getting at is, I find I really need parameters.  You know how when you're watching something like Top Chef or Project Runway and Padma or Heidi will be laying out today's challenge and then they'll get a twinkle in their eye and then wickedly announce "BUT there's a twist!!!"  Then all of a sudden the designers are only allowed to use Hefty bags out of which they are expected to create a red carpet gown or the cheftestants can only spend like $5 on ingredients to make a meal for a family of four and everyone's face drops and they whine and complain.  Screw them, I love that kind of thing.  It fuels the creativity.  Back when I was in architecture school our projects always had parameters of some sort and did WE complain???  Well actually yeah, I guess we did.

Anyway.  If you notice, many of the posts here on Well Fed are working up against some sort of obstacle or challenge (some of my guests are vegetarian, the meal's theme is Moroccan, I need to make something that doesn't require the use of a knife to cut, etc...)  Sunday, I had no obstacle.  The closest thing was Mark had been up visiting his mother and had been eating a lot of red meat, and as such, was not into eating MORE red meat.  After looking at cookbooks and websites a decision could not be made.  We ended up going to the Abbey for cocktails and then, whilst buzzed, meandered across the street for hamburgers and chili fries.

Monday when I noticed it was Bastille Day I realized I finally had my long awaited for parameter:  In honor of Bastille Day I should make something FRENCH!  Yeah, I know.  It's a little bit weak.  But it really helped.  I thought to this recipe I came across in a recent Williams Sonoma catalogue that had caught my eye.  It was not red meat AND it was French.  Perfect!

INGREDIENTS
1 chicken, about 3 to 4 pounds, cut into 8 serving pieces
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 yellow onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 yellow squash, quartered and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/4 cup dry white wine
3 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
3 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon
5 plum tomatoes, seeded and quartered
1/4 cup dry-cured black olives, pitted
1 1/4 cups chicken stock

METHOD
Season the chicken with salt and pepper. In a 5 1/2-quart Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil. Add the chicken and brown about 5 minutes per side.  Transfer to a plate while you continue to brown the rest of the chicken.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the onion, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more. Add the squash, wine, 2 tablespoons of the parsley and 2 teaspoons of the tarragon. 

Cook, stirring occasionally, until the squash is soft but not browned, about 5 minutes.

Return the chicken to the pan and add the tomatoes, olives and stock. 

Bring to a gentle simmer, then reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, 25 to 30 minutes. Stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon parsley and 1 teaspoon tarragon. Serve immediately.

Despite the fact that this is a braised chicken dish, the sort of thing that would typically bring to mind, cool fall nights, this is actually very summery.  I mean, what vegetables perfectly exemplify warm weather, more than yellow squash and tomatoes?  Since tomatoes and squash always desperately need salt to make their flavors really pop, the olives serve that function, as well as adding depth of flavor.  Braising the chicken results in very moist meat and the resulting broth is nice and light.  After dinner I couldn't stop standing at the stove slurping spoonful after spoonful of it.  The parsley and tarragon pair well with the wine and chicken, although I wonder if basil might be used as well, perhaps in place of the tarragon.  It's an idea I might explore at some point.  Although I didn't, I highly recommend serving this dish with some ragged hunks of warm, crusty baguette.  The contrast in textures would be brilliant.  Add a butter lettuce salad to start, a couple bottles of wine and some sort of fruit dessert and you've got yourself a gorgeous little dinner party for a balmy summer night.

Serves 4 to 6

JALAPENO, CILANTRO, CUMIN & LIME MARINATED SKIRT STEAK

"What are you doing for dinner tomorrow night?" I asked Annie over the phone.  "Nothing," she answered.  "Why?"  I explained that I had just been making a marinade for some some skirt steak I was planning on grilling for dinner for Mark and myself, but when I checked to recipe to see how long it needed to marinate, was mortified to discover that it needed 12 to 24 hours.  She burst into gales of laughter.  "So what are you going to do for dinner tonight?" she asked.  "Go out," I replied.  She asked why I couldn't just make it the next night.  "Mark already has dinner plans with a friend of his," I told her.  "Well then," she said, "I guess you're grilling me some skirt steak for dinner tomorrow."

What made my mistake particularly shameful is that I wound up doing what my dear friend, my cooking partner is notorious for.  You see, Annie has a habit of not reading recipes completely though before she starts making them.  I call this "pulling an Annie."  She will very methodically measure out ingredients and yet she almost never reads the recipe all the way through unless I remind her.  As such we'll be cooking and all of a sudden she yelps things like, "Oh (expletive) I wasn't supposed to add the lemon juice yet!" or "(expletive)! The custard has to chill for several hours before we put it in the ice cream maker!"  I just shake my head and sigh in an exasperated and condescending way.  

I on the other hand always read the recipe through, several times.  So why did I miss such an important instruction, you ask?  Well in my defense, this was a recipe that Annie and I saw demonstrated at a cooking class we recently attended at Border Grill in Santa Monica and during the demonstration, Mary Sue and Susan, the two women who own the restaurant, made this particular marinade and then a few moments later, were grilling the meat.  I guess I forgot the part when someone from the kitchen ran out a piece of skirt steak that had been marinating since the day before.  You can understand, right?  And now, the tables have turned.  And Annie is not the kind of person to take the higher road.

Anyway, the next afternoon, I packed up my skirt steak along with the ingredients for the sides I had been planning on serving with it and headed down to Annie and Pierson's house in Culver City.  Annie answered the door and just shook her head and sighed, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.  I was not proud.

INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup cumin seeds
6 jalapenos, stemmed, seeded (seeds reserved) and coarsely chopped
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
2 bunches cilantro
1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 1/2 to 3 pounds skirt steak, trimmed of excess fat

METHOD
Lightly toast the cumin seeds in a dry medium skillet over moderate heat until the aroma is released, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.  Transfer the seeds to a blender or food processor.  Add the jalapenos, garlic, salt, pepper, and lime juice.

Puree until everything is finely chopped and the seeds are ground.  Add the cilantro and pulse some more until finely chopped and mixed well.  With the processor running, slowly drizzle the olive oil through the feed tube until the mixture becomes thick and creamy.  Taste the marinade and if you desire a little more heat, add some of the reserved jalapeno seeds and then pulse again until combined.  I used about half of the reserved seeds.  Set aside half the marinade in a separate bowl to use later as a sauce.

Using your hands slather the skirt steak generously with the marinade then roll each piece into a cylinder.  Arrange the steak rolls in a shallow casserole dish spooning over any remaining marinade.  

Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.

About 30 minutes before cooking, remove meat from refrigerator.  Heat a barbeque, grill pan or broiler to very hot.  One thing I didn't do but would recommend, is fold a paper towel into a small thick square.  Blot the paper towel with some olive oil and then quickly rub the grates of the grill.  This will help prevent the meat from sticking.  Cook the steaks until just seared on both sides, about 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium rare.  

Transfer the steaks to a plate and let rest for 10 minutes.  Slice the skirt steak against the grain (very important to slice against the grain, otherwise the steak will taste tough) into thin slices and serve immediately with a small dish of the reserved marinade to spoon over.

This whole meal was incredible, not to oversell.  I'm just being honest.  The marinade is slightly spicy with a smoky subtext.  My food processor didn't completely pulverize the cumin seeds and as such the marinade had an interesting texture.  If you prefer, maybe grind the toasted cumin seeds in a spice grinder before combining them with the rest of the marinade ingredients.  The lime juice and cilantro imbue freshness, and even if you think you don't like cilantro, do give this a try.  The cilantro flavor is not at the foreground, rather it combines with everything else and the results are a bit more complex and interesting.  I sort of wonder what it might be like with some mint added as well.

I served the skirt steak with some sliced avocado, a mound of black beans that had been cooked with bacon, garlic and some earthy ancho chile powder, and some grilled corn on the cob, Mexican style, which is to say, slathered with a mixture of mayonnaise, lime juice, and cayenne pepper, then showered with cotija cheese.  To drink, Annie made round after round of Blackberry-Thyme Margaritas.

This marinade is fantastic on the skirt steak although I used the leftover to marinate a couple pork loins with favorable results.  I would expect it working well with chicken too.  But do take the time to let whatever it is you choose to marinate really soak in the flavors.  It does make a difference.

Serves 6 or so