Bean salad

Beans aren't only for cold weather, as these lovely salads in Steve Sando's Heirloom Beans demonstrate (see my blog from last year on these beans). I forgot the volume that a pound of dried beans swells into, so I had a chance to try three salads in quick succession when I cooked up a pound of Rancho Gordo's Mayacoba beans.

I cooked the beans per Sando's instructions with a mirepoix (one carrot, one celery and half an onion) and a crushed garlic. After soaking overnight, they only required a little over an hour to get soft. Sando encourages you to make the salads with the beans slightly warmed so I brought them to room temperature and briefly warmed them in a skillet with a couple tablespoons water in it before making each salad.

With a cup and a half of the cooked beans, I made the Fennel and Radicchio with Mayacoba bean salad. Two fennel bulbs sliced lengthwise are tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and sautéed until golden brown and soft. These are mixed with sliced radicchio, 6 slices of bacon fried and crumbled and the beans and tossed in a dressing of 1/2 chopped shallot, 1 tsp. dijon mustard, 1 Tbl. fresh lemon juice, 1 Tbl. red wine vinegar and 4 Tbl. EVOO. Shaved parmesan is added to the tossed salad. (Sando's recipe also includes hazelnuts roasted and rubbed to remove the skin, then chopped -- but I omitted these. He calls for radicchio di Treviso, but I had to make do with California radicchio and it still tasted excellent.)

With another two cups of the cooked beans, I made the Mayacoba bean salad with pesto and shrimp. A half pound of medium shrimp are peeled and deveined and then cooked 30 seconds in a court bouillon of 1 bay leaf, 1/4 tsp. fennel seads, 1/4 tsp. coriander seeds, 4 to 5 peppercorns, 1 crushed garlic clove, a 1/3 c. dry white wine, 1/2 lemon, and 1/2 tsp salt simmered in a small saucepan of water for 10 min. The pesto, which expressly omits the usual parmesan and pine nuts, is made from 2 c. loosely packed fresh basil leaves, 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/3 c. EVOO processed in a food processor. To assemble, toss the beans and shrimp together with 1 c. cherry or grape tomatoes cut in half, pour over the pesto and toss again, then season with salt, pepper and the juice of 1/2 lemon. Very tasty.

With the remaining 2-1/2 c. of Mayacoba beans I made the Italian marrow bean with tuna salad, a variation on a standard Mediterranean dish. Sando specifies that you use imported tuna packed in oil (standard 5 oz. can). You break this up with a fork in a salad bowl, add the beans, 1/2 thinly sliced medium sweet onion, 1 celery stalk half lengthwise then sliced on the diagonal, 1/3 c. chopped fresh parsley, and then drizzle with 3 Tbl EVOO, 2 tsp red wine vinegar, and toss with salt and pepper.

Believe it or not, I didn't get tired of beans. Each salad is so different and has such a nice balance of flavors, you forget that they're all made from the same batch of beans.

Daube Avignonnaise

It might seem counterintuitive to have a beef stew when the outside temperature is topping 100 degrees, but Patricia Wells bills this white wine daube as "ideal for summer."

It's the first recipe I've taken from The Provence Cookbook and it was a big success. A full 6 lbs of beef cut into large cubes (3 oz) -- she recommends two or three different cuts like round, short ribs, etc. -- plus 2 onions sliced, 4 carrots sliced, 4 oz mushrooms sliced, a head of garlic with cloves peeled and halved, zest of orange, 2 tomatoes peeled and chopped, a parsley and bay leaf bouquet garni and 2 bottles of white wine simmer in a slow oven (325 degrees) for 3-4 hours. The beef is marinated for 2 hours beforehand in just 2 Tbl cognac, 2 Tbl olive oil and salt and pepper. The stew is served over penne tossed in parmesan and accompanied with a white Cote du Rhone (I did not splurge on white Chateauneuf du Pape, but that obviously would be ideal). It is listed as 6 servings, but those are very, very generous servings.

I worked for Walter Wells at the International Herald Tribune back in 1980-81 and met Patricia just as she was starting on her fabulous career as a food writer in France. Like most francophile gourmets (yes, a redundant expression), I have several of her books. She knows her food, though her recipes are not always as careful and reliable as writers more specialized in cookbooks. This one works fine if, like me, you don't mind a soupy stew with lots of fat.

Patricia's career as a bestselling author eventually eclipsed Walter's as newspaper editor, though I doubt he has many complaints with the idyllic life they have carved out for themselves in Provence. Patricia reportedly is scouting out Uzès, where we stayed briefly last summer, for a possible school. Though not actually in Provence, Uzès is incredibly charming and has a wonderful market. Avignon, home of this daube, is the closest big city.

Spice Xing

There's not a thing wrong with the food at Spice Xing (pronounced Spice Crossing). The restaurant in Rockville Town Center offers the high-quality Indian cuisine one expects from Sudhir Seth. However, there's no reason to make the trek to Rockville when Passage to India, with its fuller and more interesting menu, is right in Bethesda.

The Rockville restaurant is billed as contemporary Indian fare, featuring dishes influenced by other cultures in India. That may be, but the bulk of the offerings in Spice Xing seemed remarkably similar to those at Passage or other Indian restaurants. Decor may be upscale by Rockville standards, but decidedly suburban (more so than the Bethesda restaurant). And service in Rockville was spotty and sloppy.

That said, the four of us on this trek had some very good food, including Lamb Ishtoo stew with cardamom and curry leaf and another lamb stew, Persian style, with apricots. Starters, except for the exotic Bhel Puri, were not that distinguished. Well worth the visit if you live in Rockville or find yourself there for some reason or another. Otherwise, go to Passage to India.