Grilled pork tenderloin with figs

Usually I just use Epicurious as a last resort, but I had a hankering for pork tenderloin and it was the easiest way to find a recipe. I experimented by searching on the iPad app and found that Epicurious has a really good interface on devices. The recipes are clear and the shopping list feature is great. Unfortunately, Epicurious has adopted an ill-advised policy of charging $1.99 to sync. So I had to download the recipe to my iPad and then separately to iPhone. Obviously, the phone is a lot handier in the store.

The pork tenderloin recipe was great! Very simple. Just brush the tenderloin with olive oil, salt and pepper and pop on the grill, turning for about 10 minutes, to an internal temperature of 140 degrees. Meanwhile, put the ripe figs on a pre-soaked wooden skewer and grill them until pulpy and caramelized. Slice the pork and drizzle honey over it, and sprinkle chopped rosemary and crumbled goat cheese on it. Serve with the grilled figs.

At the store, I liked the look of the escarole so searched Epicurious for an appropriate recipe. The fourth or fifth selection was a variation on the classic spinach salad, putting bacon, chopped eggs, and a warm vinaigrette on the escarole. Crisp a couple of slice of bacon and crumble. Saute chopped shallot in the bacon grease until soft and whisk in a vinaigrette of 1/4 c. olive oil and 3 Tbl. white balsamic vinegar (I didn't have white so used the fig and meyer lemon balsamic that we had). Season the vinaigrette and drizzle over the escarole, then sprinkle the bacon, chopped hard-boiled egg, and goat cheese over it.

The sweet and sour of the vinaigrette and the salty of the bacon counterbalanced the bitterness of the escarole and the salad perfectly matched the pork and figs. The wonderful Niman Ranch pork was so tender and complemented well by the honey and figs. I had never grilled figs before, and they gave up a great aroma on the grill.

All in all, a very successful experiment. Look for more Epicurious app recipes!

Parthenon

We have probably been unfair to the Parthenon in avoiding it for so long. It may be they have actually improved since the last time we went there some years ago, but I thought it was just fine for a neighborhood restaurant when we went last week. The Yelp reviews, for what that's worth, tend to be better in the more recent postings, while the older ones are closer to the somewhat negative opinion we have had.

In any case, I sometimes get a hankering for a kebab and the lamb kebab I got at Parthenon filled the bill. It was tender and flavorful from the marinade, with the seared grilled taste of the lamb and onion that are so essential, and served with rice and those great limp Greek green beans. Andrea got a baked lamb with orzo that I tasted and it was also delicious. The taramosalata I had as a starter was also quite nice, though I've had similar fish roe dishes in Greek restaurants in Europe that were somewhat stronger. I had an ouzo and the house cabernet, a Greek wine, that was good, inexpensive and generously portioned.

Many of the complaints in Yelp and other reviews were about price, but when Jake's American Grille is charging $14 and $18 for a hamburger, it might be time to adjust our notions of what is overpriced in a classic Greek restaurant -- $17 for the lamb kebab was not really overpriced on that scale. Yes, the menu at a classic Greek restaurant like the Parthenon is boring, and yes, the decor is tacky. But we like the tackiness of some of the oldline Italian-American restaurants in Bethesda and this has the same flavor.

In short, we won't go there once a week but we will definitely go back within months rather than years. It will be after the weather cools down since their air conditioning clearly was not up to last week's 100+ degree temperatures.

Grilled rum-soaked shrimp

I have a number of books with grill recipes that I don't use enough so I will be making a concerted effort to find more things in them. So this recipe is from The Thrill of the Grill by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby. I had a hankering for shrimp and this seemed fairly easy.

To start with, though, I found the directions for prepping the shrimp hard to understand. In the recipe, it says peel the 2 lbs of shrimp and make an incision along the back to pull out that "vein." But the side note says, "I leave the skins on to protect the meat." I think two people wrote this book and the side note writer didn't read the recipe.

So I opted to keep the shell on and pull out as much of the vein as I could from the top. It might be possible to devein and leave the shell on but I would have to do some research on that. I used the 16 count, which the author describes as "medium" and the Fishery describes as "jumbo." But especially if you are peeling them on your plate, bigger is better.

The full recipe (I halved it) is for 2 lbs of shrimp that you clean and immerse in a marinade of 1-1/2 c. pineapple juice, 8 Tbl lime juice, 1/2 c. dark rum, 2 Tbl chopped cilantro, 1 tsp chopped garlic and salt and pepper and refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours -- not any longer because the citrus "cooks" the shrimp.

You then thread the shrimp onto a skewer, pushing it through the tail then curling the top part down to pierce a second time, making a very attractive presentation. Grill 3 to 4 min. on a side until opaque. The recipe calls for a mango-lime relish of mango, bell pepper, red onion, more pineapple and lime juices and chopped garlic and cilantro as well as red wine vinegar and curry powder, which didn't feel like fooling with. Some sort of salsa or relish would enhance the shrimp, however. We just squeezed more limes over it and it was plenty good. Not sure how it would work to serve unpeeled shrimp on the relish, as specified by the recipe.

I also fixed, as recommended, the authors' grilled sweet potatoes, which are peeled, cut into slices and parboiled, then glazed with molasses mixed with orange juice, butter and allspice. This was fine, but I'm not sure you need the glaze.

Thai-style baby back ribs

I usually think of the NY Times food section, which they call "Dining," as somewhat lame and this week's articles on summer cocktails proved the point. They did have an interesting article, however, about how cuisines in hot-weather countries differ from our Western, French-style cuisines by not building a pyramid of flavors over time but cooking quickly and producing a wave of flavors.

Case in point was this recipe. Instead of marinating the ribs overnight and slow-cooking them in a smoker you grill the meat quickly and toss it with the flavoring -- all in the space of 30 to 40 minutes. Worth a try!

Just salt and pepper 2 racks of baby backs (3 to 3-1/2 lbs) and slap them onto a medium-low grill and cook 10 to 12 min. on each side. I used the BGE and it did a terrific job. Then you cut the racks into individual ribs and toss in a bowl with the ingredients for the sauce: 1/4 c. soy sauce, 1/4 c. Thai fish sauce, 1/4 c. lime juice (from 2 limes), 1 Tbl. sugar, 2 Tbl. chopped jalapenos, 2 Tbl. minced ginger, 1 Tbl. minced garlic, 3 Tbl. minced lemon grass. And the writer means toss -- flip in a huge bowl like a chef with a skillet -- to get everything mixed together.

The grilled ribs were delicious in flavor, but clearly not as tender as we are used to from our slow methods. The sauce had a nice Asian flavor, and I picked up some hot Thai vegetables and Asian broccoli slaw from the prepared food tables at WF to accompany. A great change of pace!

More trout

I went fishing just a few times as a child and the only time I remember catching a fish was during our vacation in Colorado, when we were at the cabin of my great-aunt Georgette outside Louisville. All of us caught some trout and pan-fried them that evening in the cabin. I thought it was delicious and very cool that you could just catch food in the lake.

So I've always had a soft spot for trout and loved it in Europe, especially in Germany, that trout was on the menu so often. In Germany, it is usually offered "blau" for poached or "Mullerin Art" for pan-fried.

I enjoyed the trout at Addie's last week so much, I decided to have it again on one of my solo nights at home. I went on to YouTube to see a demonstration of pan-frying, which at least showed me there's not big secret to it. The recipe being demonstrated was for trout with bacon and garlic, so that's what I made.

You flour the trout and fry it 5 min. on each side in a combination of butter and oil. Remove the trout and keep it warm. Put 2 "rashers" of bacon cut into strips into skillet, and after a couple of minutes add some chopped shallot and garlic. When soft, add 2 Tbl of red wine vinegar and some chopped parsley, and pour this sauce over the warm trout.

I drained off the original cooking oil from the trout because it had burned a bit, so I probably should have enriched the sauce with a little extra butter. This sauce is a bit like the "Finkenwerder Art" that is often served with flounder in Germany. In general, all this is a little overpowering for the trout, so I think I'll try poaching it next time.

Chicken with eggplant

Summer and stew may not seem like an obvious combination, but this tasty little recipe from Domenica Marchetti, redolent of ratatouille and Mediterranean breezes, is quite enjoyable.

Cut up a chicken into 10 pieces, brown them in oil, and reserve while you saute a chopped onion and 2 crushed garlic cloves. Add 2 small eggplants, cut into 1/2-in. slices and then quartered and soften (she also salts them to draw out the bitterness, but I'm not sure my baby eggplants needed that). Add 12 oz. cherry tomatoes cut in half lengthwise and 1/2 c. chicken broth, return the chicken and simmer 30 to 40 min. Stir in 1 Tbl. balsamic vinegar and 3/4 c. Kalamata olives (omitted) and sprinkle 1 tsp. chopped basil and 2 tsp. chopped parsley on top.

Marchetti recommends serving a simple potato salad of boiled russet potatoes, sliced and dressed with salt, chives and olive oil. That worked perfectly to soak up the sauce.

Addie's again

What made our latest trip to Addie's particularly pleasant was that most everything -- from the very small things to the big things -- was pretty near perfect. The wine was chilled, the butter was soft, the bread was fresh, the weather was ideal, and the food was terrific.

And it was all spontaneous. We happened to be coming home on Rockville Pike a little on the early side for dinner and thought to stop at Addie's just for a drink and appetizer. They were booked inside but the patio was first come, first served because, as they warned us, if it rained, they had no room for us inside. It had sprinkled on and off during the day, but there seemed little danger really of getting drenched.

I'm always game for an early dinner after growing up eating the evening meal at 5, so we decided to just stay and order a full meal. I had the soup of the day, which was a cold zucchini soup that seemed to have some cucumber, dill and cream in it, along with some radish shavings floating on top. It was fresh, nicely chilled, and tasting of vegetables rather than cream and seasonings. For the main course, I had sauteed trout fillet with "ivory lentils," spring pea purree, and sorrel chimichurri. The trout was creamy white and moist and set off perfectly by the sides. My Loire Valley sauvignon blanc went so well with it, I ordered a second glass. Andrea was very happy with her Caesar salad (I ate the fresh anchovies), beautifully fried softshell crabs and Cotes du Rhone rose.

But for the roar of traffic on the Pike and the view in the other direction of a parking lot, Addie's sheltered patio could have been an Italian piazza, and we pretended it was during a perfectly delightful meal.