Not Derby Pie

I get as excited as the next girl about making zucchini gratin, corn soup, peach cobbler, etc. Never was there a better time for produce than smack in the middle of summer. The downside, of course, is that some days, I’m too pooped to patchke. I’d rather just stand over the sink, peach in hand, and let the juice dribble down my chin as I indulge in an effortless, delicious, afternoon snack.

This salad is for those days. It’s for the other days, too; but when the heat has gotten the best of you, you’ll be thankful for something this good, this seasonal, that requires so little actual movement on your part (the better to sit near the fan and let the sweat evaporate. You know what I’m talking about.)

When the peaches and tomatoes are as good as they are right now (this very moment! Get thee to the market, pronto!), they need nothing. They do benefit, however, from a drizzle of fine olive oil, a sprinkling of sea salt, and a couple drops of reduced balsamic vinegar or saba (my favorite ingredient ever: reduced grape must. You can get it at Italian grocery stores and on Amazon). That’s all, folks.

Peach Tomato Salad
serves 2

2 juicy peaches, peeled (probably need to use a paring knife if they’re as juicy as they should be)
1 pint good cherry or grape tomatoes
a few tiny basil or mint leaves
3 tablespoons fine olive oil, preferably a fruity one
flaky sea salt
2 teaspoons reduced balsamic vinegar or saba; pomegranate syrup would also be good

Peel peaches and slice each peach into 6 wedges. Halve tomatoes. Arrange on platter, and top with mint or basil leaves.

Drizzle oil over salad, and sprinkle lightly with flaky salt. Drizzle the vinegar or saba with a very light hand.

Either serve immediately (fine), or allow salad to sit for 10 minutes. Tomatoes and peaches will exude their liquid and seem, impossibly, juicier. Eat up.

Most of you regulars probably know that in the summer months, D and I operate under a cold-oven policy. Our apartment, see, it loves the heat. It clings to every last morsel of July humidity like there’s some shortage (which, having spent the past week in town clinging to my vent, I can say with certainty there is not). Living in this hot, sticky mess, I’m so tired I can barely cook. We’ve been eating lots of salads these past few weeks, and in our near future, there’s no shortage of those, either.

On the rare occasions that I do turn on the oven (for, say, this peach blackberry wonder), I try to maximize its utility. That’s what had me making these mushroom turnovers a couple weeks back. The oven was already on, so I figured I should get as much stuff inside as I possibly could. The beauty of these triangles is that you can cook the whole batch at once, freeze them, and then pop a couple into a container any which day and call ’em lunch.

I’ve been making spanikopita for years, both with puff pastry and with phyllo dough, and apple turnovers are a beloved winter brunch staple. But mushroom turnovers are the newest addition to my turnover repertoire. They’re easy, delicious, and appropriate for all seasons. Also, they’re pretty easy to make.

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Corned beef is one of those foods I always assumed I couldn’t make. Even by the looks of it – mysteriously pink inside, despite the brining process, perfectly I’m happy to try my hands at kimchi, sour cherry preserves, even babka, but deli sandwiches are best made by the pros. Or so I thought.

But Mrs. Wheelbarrow knows better than to let nice, well-meaning home cooks like me get intimidated by something as easy (yes, you heard me, easy!) as corned beef. In fact, she’s created a yearlong project devoted to dispelling just such a notion. And while these days, the Charcutepaloozans are conquering fancy things like homemade bratwurst and chicken liver terrine, corned beef is so very easy to make, that it was their very first challenge. If corned beef is just a warm-up for Cathy, I knew it wouldn’t be too hard for me to make, either. And I was right.

I can see the eye-rolls through the interwebs. Let’s back up. Corned beef is nothing more than pickled, boiled brisket. That’s why it’s so easy to make: first you pickle it, then you boil it. The key, of course, is to use the best pickling spice there is, which, at least in this case, is a homemade concoction. I used the pickling spice recipe from Ruhlman, the king of charcuterie (no really, he’s the author of the book Charcuterie and the godfather of Charcutepalooza). I’m really excited that his recipe made extra spice, because I’ll be using it for green beans and cabbage later this week.

So that’s the rub with corned beef. Marinate in salt water with spices, rinse, boil with more spices. Poof. The real question is what to do once you’ve got a beautiful piece of corned beef. The possibilities! We’ve eaten quite a few sandwiches so far, and I’m planning for some very traditional corned beef and cabbage, with some egg noodles to wash it all down. I only wish I’d made more. Stuff’s delish.

Corned Beef
adapted from Ruhlman

A note about pink salt: if you’ve got it, use it, and your brisket will stay pink. If you don’t have it, don’t sweat it.

for the brisket:

1 (2.5-lb) first-cut brisket
3/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pink salt (sodium nitrite), optional
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons pickling spice

for the pickling spice:

1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon hot red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon ground mace
1 small cinnamon stick, crushed or broken into pieces
2 bay leaves, crumbled
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1/2 tablespoon ground ginger

First, make the pickling spice: combine pepper, mustard, and coriander seeds in a dry saute pan and toast over medium heat, being careful not to burn. Let your nose guide you; I found everything fragrant and adequately toasted by the time the mustard seeds had just started to pop. When seeds are toasted, transfer to a heatsafe bowl. Combine with other spices. Let cool completely, then transfer to sealable jar.

Now, brine the brisket: in a pot large enough to hold the brisket, combine half a gallon of water, salt, sugar, pink salt (if using), garlic, and 1 tablespoon of the pickling spice mix. Bring to a simmer, letting salt and sugar dissolve. Cool liquid completely, then transfer to a storage container. Add brisket, weighing meat down with a plate if necessary to keep it submerged, and brine for 5 days.

After 5 days, remove brisket from brine and rinse thoroughly. Transfer to a large pot, add the remaining tablespoon of spices and enough water to cover the brisket, and bring to a slow simmer. Partially cover the pot, and cook brisket in the spiced water for about 2 1/2 hours. If water boils down to the point where the brisket is no longer covered, add enough water to cover the meat.

When brisket is fork-tender, remove it from the cooking water. If you’re planning to serve the corned beef with vegetables reserve the cooking water and use it to cook the vegetables.

Once corned beef has cooled for about 10 minutes, use a sharp knife to slice against the grain into slices. Either serve immediately, or wrap tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

The newest in my Weekday Lunch series, where I tell the tale of eating one meal a day on the job, and actually enjoying it. For all you weekday lunch enthusiasts, the wonderful ladies at BGSK have launched Brown Bag Week on their Small Kitchen College site. You can learn about great bag lunch ideas, and win some pretty awesome stuff from BuiltNY. Go check it out!

See that photo up there? I shot that with my iphone, at work. It’s a picture of yesterday’s lunch, but it easily could have been a picture from any day this week. For the past little while, I’ve been bringing some version of this very easy salad for work every day, and it’s pretty much made my summer.

I think people assume that a brown bag lunch must be either a one-pot dish like pasta salad, or a wrap/sandwich. I’m of the opinion that almost anything can be brought to work for lunch (need proof? Check out my Weekday Lunch series), and salads are no exception. The key is to pack them smartly. Let’s discuss.

But first, what’s in the dixie bowl? Well, we’ve got some of my favorite salad greens – a mix of spinach, arugula, and sorrel that I get at the market on Sundays – chopped; raw, bi-color corn kernels; halved cherry tomatoes; chopped cucumbers; and finally, the crowning ingredient, the thing that really makes this salad sing: crunchies.

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I hope by now you’ve become as hooked on sour cherries as I am. I’ve been preaching some gospel about the fleeting summer fruit, pushing you all to make this sour cherry compote (and some of you have made it! and liked it! phew.). But this here, this is a recipe you absolutely need right this very moment, before sour cherries exit stage left for another year.

Reader, make some sour cherry hand pies. Not just any hand pies, but these – for these may be the most perfect hand pies I’ve ever made or eaten. And while I know in light of my raving about the whole sour cherry-ness of these pies what I’m about to say will seem strange, it all starts with the crust. That’s right: after years of making pie, using my old-faithful all-butter pie recipe (which I think I originally got from the lovely Deb), I’m changing my tune on the perfect crust.

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I rarely post about drinks in this space. Truth is, until recently I hadn’t a clue how to mix a good drink. My bar was “stocked” with two bottles of Kahlua, a half-empty jug of Bailey’s, and the brandy and sherry I use in cooking. For a nice, hard drink, I went around the corner and plopped my derriere at a bar. So it was.

I’m pretty sure it was Jen, from Last Night’s Dinner, who, in a sort of roundabout way, kickstarted my newfound intrigue in liquor and the cool things you can do with it. (I sound a little bit like I just had my 21st birthday, I know.) It’s ironic, since Jen’s husband, Mike, is the real drink expert. He blogs at A Dash of Bitters and writes a drink column for Serious Eats Drinks. But it was Jen who got me started. Earlier this year, Jen posted a recipe on Food52 for linguine with sardines, tomato, and fennel. That dish became one of my addictions this past winter, and I made it probably once a week. It’s a beautiful recipe, in which long pasta meets melted fennel, bright tomato, briny sardines, toasted bread crumbs, and…dry vermouth.

Vermouth, I came to learn, is a fortified wine. There’s sweet vermouth and dry vermouth. I’ve come to think that in cooking, dry vermouth is to white wine what shallots are to onions: more complex, more buttery, more exciting. I still cook with plenty of white wine, but especially in savory dishes, I turn more and more to dry vermouth.

Then there’s sweet vermouth, which has about half as sweet as port and, again, fortified with various herbs and spices. I’ve used it in chicken dishes to impart a gentle sweetness with plenty of flavor. The stuff is really, really good.

In my urban kitchen, where we’re perpetually in negotiations about the necessity of every utensil or appliance, the vermouth functioned as a new toy. It was great in food, but I wondered about its potential in, of all places, the glass.

I started playing with vermouth-based cocktails, this and this. But I have both a terrible memory and a penchant for not following recipes so well, and when those two things combine, you’ve got yourself a terrible mixologist. So at the end of the day, I’ve come to favor a cocktail that’s as easy to memorize as it is to quaff: the Negroni.

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In some sense, it’s hard to come up with anything insightful to say about a dish containing four ingredients, one of which is salt and the other three of which are in this post’s title. On the other hand, one taste had me going on and on about how simple, how delicious, it all was. It’s a dish of contradictions: complex flavor from very few ingredients, a celebration of the bounty of summer with none of the fuss involved in, say, sour cherry pie.

We’re talking about zucchini and snap peas, two of summer’s greatest-hit vegetables. If you’ve seen those very small zucchini at the market and wondered what to do with them, this is the perfect recipe for showing off their shape. (If you can’t find baby zucchini, regular zucchini sliced into thick coins will work just fine.) I’ve spent many summers sauteing zucchini coins in butter; never once did I consider ditching the butter in favor of water. (Ditching butter? Would I ever? No.) But this is an exception: when you’re dealing with summer’s freshest vegetables, at the peak of the season, a little salted water is all you need.

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