Roast chicken with lemon

A cold, rainy spring day seemed like just the right time for this classic recipe from Marcella Hazan. I'd forgotten how simple it is -- and how delicious. I used a 4-lb kosher chicken from WF with the additional step of letting it air in the fridge for a while before roasting it.

Otherwise I followed her instructions -- massage salt and pepper into the chicken inside and out, roll two lemons and puncture them (20x) with a toothpick, stuff them into the cavity, close the cavity with toothpicks and tie the legs together, put in a 350 oven breast side down for 15 minutes, turn it over for 20 minutes, increase heat to 400 for another 15 minutes. Since my 4-pounder was bigger than the 2.5 lbs in the recipe, I allowed a little longer for each phase and tested the temperature for 165. As she says, the chicken is self-basting and has no need of additional fat.

Fir0002/Flagstaffotos via Wikimedia Commons

The result was a very moist and wonderfully tasty chicken with reasonably crispy skin. It was exquisite, filling the kitchen with that roast chicken aroma and rewarding your taste buds with that unadulterated chicken taste.

I felt like lentils on a rainy day and had a small piece of guanciale I wanted to use up, so I googled "lentils pancetta" and got a great little recipe from Mario Batali courtesy of ABC's Chew. This entailed covering a 1/2 lb of lentils with water, bringing to a simmer, adding a halved onion, halved carrot, halved celery, 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard, and 2 ounces of pancetta/guanciale cut into strips. After cooking 20 minutes till tender, drain the lentils, saving a little of the cooking liquid, discard the vegetables, coarsely chop the pancetta and add that back to the lentils with just enough liquid to moisten the lentils. Dress with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper, and serve warm or let come to room temperature -- which Batali rightly says allows the flavors to come out.

Add a salad of baby arugula and a grenache from Spain and you've got a really great meal for a weekday -- plus plenty of leftover roast chicken!

Bonavita

Photo by Bonavita

With super-premium small-batch coffees like Ceremony in Annapolis selling for $15 for 12 ounces, I realized it was time to move on from my dinky little Mr. Coffee coffeemaker. I've been so happy with my Capresso conical burr grinder after a Sur La Table sales assistant recommended it, I decided to follow their advice on the coffeemaker as well and plunked down the hefty purchase price for Bonavita.

This German-engineered appliance gets a lot of praise on the Web as well. It heats the water a little hotter, getting it in the 195-05-degree range considered ideal for making coffee. It has a great spray nozzle that covers the whole filter. One of my problems with the Mr. Coffee was that it wasn't reaching all of the coffee, which was simply too expensive for that kind of neglect. I've found that I use much less coffee with the Bonavita, and of course it tastes much, much better.

Other features I like are that the thermal carafe is lined with glass -- which conserves the heat much better than the all-metal thermal carafe in my old Krups. Also, the carafe has no lid during the brewing process. One of my issues with the Krups was the brewed coffee had to go through the little opening created by the pressure of the lid against the filter bottom, and I felt it got gummed up with old coffee that affected the taste.

So there's no drip-stop function to take the pot out earlier if you're in a hurry, but the whole brewing process is just 6 to 8 minutes. Bonavita is serious in other respects, too. There's no timer. Serious coffee drinkers don't load up their coffee the night before so it can get stale overnight and be there when the timer goes off.

Truly serious coffee drinkers don't believe in any automatic coffeemaker. They insist on pour-over or French press (or Turkish). I've had experience with all these, including the Chemex pour-over. I will probably get a small porcelain filter-holder and kettle to brew individual cups of coffee in the afternoon. Bonavita wants you to make at least 6 cups to get the best result and I don't want two 6-cup pots of coffee a day.

Chicken with escarole, apples and potatoes

This unusual combination from Sara Jenkins' cookbook adds a layer of flavor to the chicken and is fun to make. As she says in the headnote, you accumulate flavors cooking everything in the same skillet, so that when you finish the final sauce with a swirl of butter it all goes over the chicken again.

The recipe calls for 4 skin-on boneless chicken breasts, which most supermarkets don't offer. So I bought the bone-in breasts and de-boned and trimmed the breasts myself, saving the tenders for another day and freezing the ribs and bits for stock. You brown the breasts in olive oil and pop them in a 250-degree oven in a baking pan covered with foil. Pour out the oil from the skillet and add 2 tablespoons butter to saute the pieces of 2 semi-tart apples (I used McIntosh), peeled, cored and cut into 8 pieces.

Earlier, you boil 12 ounces of new potatoes until tender, cool, and flatten with a chef's knife. After sauteeing the apples, you add 2 more tablespoons of butter and fry up the flattened potatoes, about 2 minutes a side. (She doesn't call for it, but I slipped the potatoes into the oven with the chicken to keep them nice and hot.) Next, you add a peeled, crushed clove of garlic to the skillet and start filling it with 2 pounds of torn escarole leaves, adding more as they wilt. Add 1/2 cup white wine and cook until lettuce is tender and liquid is reduced. Return the apple pieces to skillet to warm up again. Plate the potatoes, chicken and escarole mix, swirl another tablespoon of butter into the juices in the skillet, and pour that over the chicken.

The breasts remain moist and their skin has all the flavor from the oil. The bitter escarole is balanced by the apples and the potatoes and butter just round out the whole dish in a very satisfying way. It is a simple, easy revelation.

Urban Butcher

Photo by Urban Butcher

The highlight of this place is the curing room, where they have big, beautiful hams and strings of sausages hanging in a controlled environment. When we had dinner there, the bratwurst appetizer was delicious (though nothing like what goes by the name of bratwurst in Germany) and the steak-frites and burger were both very good. I would go back to buy sausage and ham.

Because what is lacking here is anything like atmosphere or charm (the photos on the website showing an empty restaurant are somewhat deceptive in that regard). Their attempt at nouveau warehouse is strong on a warehouse look and feel, but missing the nouveau element of charm or personality. It is basically just a dump, with hard surfaces, lots of noise, uncomfortable chairs and very tight spaces.

The worst thing, though, for what purports to be a butcher shop as well as a restaurant is the butcher counter, where a dismal array of small cuts vacuum-sealed in plastic have as much appeal as meat made from lego pieces. It's another disappointment in my search for a decent butcher in DC.

My beef, so to speak, with the nouvelle boucherie shops that have sprung up in DC is that it's hit and miss what they will have. You can't go there and count on finding the cut you want for the recipe you've chosen. I have dozens of recipes that want lamb shoulder, for instance, and you can never find that cut anywhere. Whole Foods, of course, only carries popular cuts that sell well (and hardly ever carries veal because it rarely meets their oh-so exacting standards).  The other places are largely adjuncts to restaurants and on a particular day will carry whatever chef didn't use. 

The only place that has come close to offering what approaches a decent butcher counter is Stachowski's, which unfortunately is not very convenient. However, I'm dreaming of the osso buco they had in the counter there and will surely go back one of these days to get that.

Le Diplomate

Photo by Le Diplomate

Finally made it to the uber-trendy French bistro, and it is worth getting enthusiastic about, though maybe not as hysterical as DC has gotten. It is a high-quality take on the the standard bistro items served up in a comfy, warm atmosphere with plenty of buzz, so no complaints.

We had a couple of nice drinks made with bubbly -- mine was the classic French 75 with gin and lemon and was very refreshing. I had the venison terrine, which was just the right mix of fatty and spicy and meaty, with a nice texture and a fresh taste. I followed with the veal escalope served with chanterelle cream -- love the mushrooms! The veal was hot, tender, with just a light coat of flour to soak in the flavor of the fat. Perfect execution. Andrea had an exquisite tuna carpaccio for starter and a lightly breaded salmon fillet that she couldn't stop raving about. To accompany we had a serviceable Brouilly at a very fair price.

Part of the fun for me was simply to soak up the French atmosphere. to see again all those familiar plates, to revel in the retro feel of it. The food is several notches above, for instance, Bistro du Coin or other French bistros in town, and service and atmosphere, too, are way ahead of the others.

Too bad it's so hard to get into.

Sara Jenkins' New Italian Pantry

We love Sara Jenkins' cookbook, Olives and Oranges, and have been waiting impatiently for her to come out with another. In the meantime, she has an app that offers 75 recipes based on 16 pantry items and a handful of fresh ingredients.

I'm sure the recipes are good but I'm not a big fan of the app. For one thing, it is obviously very limited. Even though she cheats on the 16 items -- some of them, such as "pasta and grains" or "onions and garlic", are multiple items -- the recipes I've looked at seem to be simple variations on a theme -- lemon, capers, garlic, parsley, olives, anchovies, etc. So whether it's lamb chops, chicken legs, cod or halibut, you're going to get a combination of these ingredients. Not too exciting.

Since, however, it is really more a technique than a recipe, the directions do encourage swapping out the various elements, and creating your own quick dish.

The app itself leaves much to be desired as app. It is slow, the user interface has gaps -- there is no way to get to the recipe page except to put "all" into the search box. The videos explaining the pantry items are a bit hoaky and very banal. In her cookbook, for instance, Jenkins has numerous specific recommendations for brands of olive oil and other products. Here she just says she cooks with olive oil.

Good effort, but I think she'd be better off getting that second cookbook out.

Palena Coffeehouse

Glazed donuts (Photo by Palena)

The kouign-amann est arrivee. This lovely confection of layered dough, butter and caramelized sugar is a Breton specialty and we discovered it on our recent trip to San Francisco. Wikipedia says it means cake-butter and that pretty well sums it up. It's a bit crispy, very buttery and sweet and delicious.

It is front and center at the wonderful new Palena Coffeehouse. This is the front part of the pre-expansion restaurant, where the bar and cafe menu used to be served. It has been renovated as a coffee bar, serving sweet and savory pastries from 7 (8 on weekends) and desserts in the evening.

Frank Ruta, who has the best cheeseburger in town and one of the best prix-fixe menus, has brought his trademark exacting standards and doing everything himself from scratch now to breakfast. The pastry array is outstanding, with all the usual croissants, scones, coffeecakes and his takes on donuts and bagels with cream cheese. The cappuccinos are very good, nice and creamy in porcelain cups, though the Swing's espresso is not at the level of Dolcezza -- still miles better than Starbucks, which is not even in the race any more for us.

When the young baker brought out a new plateful of kouign-amann a customer asked, "What are those?" She heard "How are those?" and just said "They're wonderful." Andrea asked her what time she got up to bake all this, and she said 3 a.m.

We were a little late catching up to this new operation, which opened in November. We went the previous night for a cheeseburger in the Cafe and only when I went to use the restroom did I discover what they'd done with this section. It's a clever way to optimize use of the building and the kitchen and makes Palena a very special destination.

Ragout of duck legs with turnips

More fowl! It sounds better in French, ragout de cuisses de canard aux navets. This recipe from Anne Willan's The Country Cooking of France was the simplest I could find in a quick browse of the cookbooks in the kitchen (there were many others but too complicated for a weekday). This recipe, a variation on one for a whole duck, was just the right way to use the duck legs that beckoned from the meat case at Broad Branch.

Brown the duck legs and set aside, drain off some fat, brown some flour and whisk in chicken stock and wine and boil to thicken. Put back the duck legs with a bouquet garni and simmer on the stove. In a separate pan, saute sliced onions in the drained duck fat and remove, then saute turnips (sprinkle some sugar on them) cut into eighths. Stir the vegetables into the duck legs and sauce and cook until tender (it took considerably longer than the 15 to 20 minutes she prescribed).

This is a great old-fashioned French dish, complete with thick sauce. The duck never got quite tender but had a great flavor. The turnips lost their bitterness from the sugar and lent an earthy note to the dish, accenting the creamy onion sauce. We had brown rice with it.

I've had a soft spot for Anne Willan since I took a course at the original Ecole de la Varenne in Paris, though she was not the teacher. I saw her soon after my arrival in Washington when she was promoting her Chateau cookbook, which I also have. I haven't got a lot of use out of her books, but this was certainly a welcome find.

Fowl weather

Snow, ice, freezing temperatures -- what could be more comforting than a slow-roasted chicken with potato wedges sizzling in the fat. Especially if the chicken was smeared with a herb paste and stuffed with lemon, garlic and more herbs, resting on a bed of herbs as it roasted away for three hours at 300 degrees.

Photo by Epicurious

This was the recipe we culled from the latest issue of Bon Appetit. We picked our favorite plump roaster, the kosher chicken at Whole Foods, and rubbed the herb paste of coarsely ground fennel seeds and red pepper flakes, chopped thyme and marjoram, salt, pepper and olive oil inside and out. Then put a quartered lemon and a halved head of garlic in the cavity with a couple more sprigs each of thyme and marjoram and placed the bird on sheet pan on top of more sprigs and surrounded by the yukon gold potatoes, scrubbed, quartered and tossed in olive oil. This goes in the oven, the potatoes get turned and the chicken basted every hour while the house fills with this incredible aroma.

The chicken comes out beautiful, moist, shreddably tender, with a crisp, flavorful skin and dark potatoes that manage to be gooey and crisp at the same time. Too often we tear out these appealing recipes and lose track of them. The key here was immediate consumption. This one is a keeper.

We have gradually come to the conclusion that the old WF at Tenley has a better and more interesting selection of produce and perhaps even meat than the big, newer WF at Friendship Heights, where we usually shop. While buying the chicken at Tenley, I noticed that they had not only frozen guinea fowl, which I almost never see at Friendship, but also frozen pheasant. So I took the pheasant home and quickly found not one but two pheasant recipes in Roden's Food of Spain, one stuffed with apples and the other stuffed with duck liver pate. I opted for the healthier apple version and we roasted our pheasant for a festive Oscar night dinner, accompanied by a crunchy, healthy barley and cauliflower salad from Bon Appetit.

As is typical for game birds -- though this was certainly farmed -- the recipe called for larding with several strips of bacon. In addition to half an apple in the cavity, it also had sauteed apple rings in the pot with a sauce made from deglazing the skillet with Calvados (I used applejack). Our bird at 2-1/2 pounds was considerably bigger than the recipe's 1-1/2 pound, so it took considerably longer than the 30 minutes at 425 degrees prescribed in the recipe. No matter, we waited happily. The breast meat was tender, with a more delicate flavor than chicken, just a bit dry in spite of the larding. The dark meat was gamier, altogether different than a chicken thigh, and was especially delicious cold the next day (yes, there were leftovers from a bird that big).

Roden's book has a number of game bird recipes -- partridge, woodcock, quail, and squab in addition to pheasant. Who knew the Spanish were such avid hunters? That's along with a good assortment of chicken, turkey, capon, guinea fowl and rabbit recipes. So plenty to look forward to still.

Mediterranean winter

It's been a hard winter and we've had our usual round of beef stew, chili, sauce bolognese, pork roast and other wintry comfort food. But not every day in the Mediterranean is hot and sunny and these countries have their own winter dishes that have helped keep us warm.

Stewy lamb is a good start. I dusted off our tagine and made Ghillie Basan's lamb tagine with shallots and dates. Lamb shoulder is hard to find so I used butterflied leg of lamb, a small piece that provided just the 1-1/2 pounds called for in the recipe. After browning the lamb, and then the 12 peeled shallots and 4 to 6 garlic cloves, you add turmeric and cinnamon sticks, put the lamb back in and cover with water. Evidently, Basan's tagine is smaller than mine, because when I put in water to cover, it comes out too watery, even after 1-1/2 hours of cooking. The dates and honey go in after the first hour, and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds finishes it off at the end.

Although it has some of the same ingredients, we moved on the same week to Ottolenghi's lamb meatballs with barberries, yogurt and herbs. Whole Foods now apparently grinds its lamb shoulder so that fresh ground lamb is available, and it made these meatballs -- which also have onion, parsley, garlic, cinnamon, allspice, barberries, salt, pepper and egg -- very tasty. After browning the meatballs, you then saute shallots (again!), add wine, stock, bay leaves, thyme, figs and sugar, place the meatballs back in and simmer for 1-1/2 hours, uncovering it after 30 minutes. Garnish with Greek yogurt and chopped herbs (cilantro, mint, dill, tarragon).

Both dishes were very warming, with the meatballs clearly ahead in the flavor department. We actually threw leftovers from both dishes together and served that over couscous -- lamb, figs, dates, shallots galore.

For my solo fish dinner this week, I went to Claudia Roden's The Food of Spain and found an easy recipe for the monkfish that looked good to me at the Fishery. This called simply for caramelizing an onion and then sauteeing the monkfish in the pan. At the end, you light some rum and flambee the fish. Monkfish has this lobster-like texture and sweet flavor that I like, so this worked perfectly. I got used to the fish in France under its much more appealing French name, lotte (also more appealing than the Spanish rape), where it often appeared on menus. It is easy and cheaper than a lot of other fish.

The Roden recipe was very nice and since Whole Foods had frozen pheasant this week, presumably farmed, I'm looking forward to using her recipe for pheasant with apples. More on that another time.

Ambar

We wanted to get into the super-trendy Rose's Luxury and in our delusion thought we could show up at 6 on a Saturday night and get in the no-reservation place. After they told us it was a three-hour wait for a table and standing room only at the bar, we retreated to the nearby Ambar, a Balkan restaurant, to mull our options and get a drink.

After an hour of sitting at the friendly bar upstairs, sampling their specialty cocktails and the mezze platter, we checked with Rose's that it would indeed be another two hours before we got a table and decided to eat dinner at Ambar. Our helpful bartender recommended his favorites on the menu, and we ended up getting four small plates and two large plates for our party of four.

The food was outstanding. The cheese pie was creamy beneath a fried crust, the sour cabbage stuffed with diced pork belly was scrumptious, the Brussels sprouts with bacon, lemon and garlic was as good as you would expect. The mixed grill was a gourmet version of the Balkan staple, with homemade sausage and marinated steak, and truly a large plate for two as advertised.. Less convincing were the Wiener schnitzel, for some reason served rolled up, and the roasted mushroom crepes, which seemed uncharacteristically heavy.

I ate at many Balkan restaurants during my time in Germany and I'm not sure too many people in the Balkans eat food quite this refined. Ambar is part of Richard Sandoval's restaurant empire (his El Centro DF is also great).

The Piquentum Malvasia Croatia we sampled first by the glass and then with a bottle was a nice balance of fruity and dry, and a great advertisement for the region. I would skip the slivovitz version of an Old Fashioned the next time around and order either the slivovitz straight or a regular Old Fashioned.

8407 Kitchen Bar

Silver Spring is really as close to us as Bethesda, but we hardly ever go there. This restaurant may change things. It is bright and warm, with delicious food -- described as farm-to-table artisanal American -- and good service. Installed in the shadow of Discovery in what appears to be an old garage or warehouse, there's no place like it in Bethesda, and I'd be hard put to name a place in DC that combines quality and comfort quite so well.

We trekked there from AFI (only two and a  half blocks but in freezing cold it was a trek) and sat at the upstairs bar. I had a Manhattan with their handmade mole vermouth, and Andrea had a house cocktail with Old Tom gin and sparkling wine that isn't on their online drinks menu. We ordered a plate of two handmade charcuterie -- the country pork terrine and the trottter tots -- both very fine. I had the pulled pork sandwich, which consisted of a homemade brioche stuffed with tender, sweet pork and very hot fries. Andrea had the risotto starter, which was tasty and delicate and made for a ample meal though both of us had the feeling it was not a true risotto but a baked rice dish. I had a glass of Fying Dog Raging Bitch on tap and Andrea had the Iris Pinot Gris from Oregon.

It was full, and fully booked, on a Saturday night and we were lucky to arrive early enough to get two places at the bar. The upper room is more sheltered and cozier, and livelier with all the table, but the downstairs looked like a perfectly acceptable alternative.

There were many things on the menu that looked worth trying, so we will certainly go back soon. We may even skip the movie and park in the garage right next door.

Cowgirl Creamery, RIP

It was one of the best things in DC but it was hard to get to. The owners of a really great cheese shop admitted that it was location that did them in as they shut the DC store at the end of the year. They seemed surprised that a location near the Spy Museum but far from the office buildings at 12th and 13th did not generate a lot of foot traffic of people doing their grocery shopping.

I'd like to think that was the only reason, and that if, for instance, they had located the shop somewhere in Chevy Chase, they might have had more luck. But I suspect not because I think there's more to it than that.

Washington is just not well suited to specialty food stores. To support these gems, you need living neighborhoods, where people shop and go out in the evening. Perhaps Capitol Hill or 14th Street are getting there, but even prosperous places like Chevy Chase and Georgetown don't seem that welcoming. After all, Marvelous Market failed at its original location at Connecticut and Nebraska and I don't think Stachowski's, for all the quality of its products, is long for this earth.

Which brings up a second point. There is no culture of service or knowledge in the operation of these stores. When we stopped in Stachowski's the other night we were waited on by two young men, one more clueless than the other, with little knowledge of the products or how to handle them. Our shoppers are content to do one-stop shopping at Whole Foods and our society generates young people capable of working as a cog in a supermarket system but with no love or feeling for food.

But there's more. The new Bethesda bakery, Fresh Baguette, has little chance of survival, I think, even though the bakers are genuine French and produce excellent bread and pastries. But they are making little effort to adapt to American tastes, offering up these pathetic sandwich fillings to a sprinkling of customers while Taylor's is mobbed. The butcher stores that have opened here are equally boutique-y, too precious, not something for daily shopping.

Cowgirl Creamery seemed to have well-trained staff who were knowledgeable and passionate about the product, but I rarely saw any of them a second time (though admittedly I went very infrequently). Were they not paid enough? Were the working conditions harsher than they seemed? Again, I suspect that American youth who would be good at the job can't work for what they're paid, and those that will work for that amount don't have the training or the interest in the product.

The long and short of it is that specialty food stores need an urban, foot-traffic culture to thrive and Washington, like most of America, is a suburban, car-driven culture. In that context, and given the stratification in society with no effort to train youth in artisanal food, it will be franchised, process-oriented food places that thrive.

Pan to oven veal chops

They sit on the cookbook shelf in my kitchen calling out to me in big fat letters -- "MEAT" and "TENDER." And yet I rarely use Hugh Whittingstall-Fearnley's The River Cottage Meat Book or Nigel Slater's Tender. But this weekday meal was a huge exception as they helped me throw together an impromptu meal that was easy and scrumptious.

The most appealing thing at Broad Branch was the big, thick veal chops -- always excellent and priced very moderately. Since the weather was too nasty for grilling I looked for an alternative and went first to the Meat book. There, hidden in the description for pan to oven pork chops was a note on a possible alternative with veal chops that was actually a different recipe. The chops are marinated with some peeled lemon zest, lemon juice, thyme and olive oil for just two hours. Then they are seared in a skillet and transferred to an oven dish heated in a 425-degree oven. The skillet is deglazed with water and lemon juice and the liquid added to the oven dish. The chops are roasted 20 to 30 minutes. The sauce is enriched with cream and capers and spooned over the chops.

Tender gave me the perfect complement, using the half-bag of potatoes I had left over from another meal. The potatoes (he calls for new but I just used these red boiling potatoes) get boiled till tender. Meanwhile, you simmer 1 cup heavy cream with 3 crushed garlic cloves and leaves from 8 thyme sprigs and salt and pepper, reducing by a third. Drain the potatoes and lightly crush them in a shallow dish, then ladle the cream over them.

To round it out I served arugula with grated lemon zest, lemon juice and our special Spanish olive oil. Very elegant comfort food! I don't know whether these are English country recipes or where they come from, but I will certainly be looking more often into these books!

Grilled salmon with lime butter

It all started when I forgot to buy lemons at the store. We'd settled on salmon fillet for a weeknight dinner, so I stopped at The Fishery for the salmon and some green beans. We usually have lemons in the fruit bowl but we had run out and I forgot to replenish the supply. All I had was one sorry little lime and a dried half-lime in the fridge.

Daderot via Wikimedia Commons

This is where the fathomless depths of the Internet come in handy. Click to Epicurious, search "salmon lime" and the first recipe to pop up is Grilled Salmon with Lime Butter -- 4-1/2 forks and 93% would make it again. The salmon is easy -- salt, pepper, slap on grill -- and the butter almost as easy -- purree 1/4 cup lime juice, a chopped garlic clove, salt and pepper then dribble in 1 stick of melted butter while running the blender until the whole is emulsified. I used the indoor option for grilling -- the ridged grill pan we bought for some of the Ottolenghi recipes -- and finished in the oven.

The lime butter was divine and would make anything taste good (and, yes, there was plenty left over for another meal). The salmon -- we just get the Canadian farm salmon, tastes good to us -- had enough scorched flavor to set off the citrusy, buttery sauce. An extra fillip came from the lime zest sprinkled over the cooked salmon.

Unaltered photo by McKay Savage under Creative Commons license

For the beans, I wanted to use the can of San Marzano tomatoes con basilico that I accidentally opened to make sauce Bolognese earlier in the week, and didn't use because I wanted to keep to Marcella's perfect recipe. Click on Epicurious, search "green beans tomato basil" and up pops Green Beans Braised with Tomato and Basil, with an equally good rating. A half onion kept in the fridge supplied the 1 cup of chopped onion, which went with 2 minced garlic cloves into 3 tablespoons of olive oil to soften, then add 1-1/2 pounds trimmed green beans, 1 cup chopped tomato, 1 cup basil leaves, and 1/2 cup water. I used my canned tomatoes with the basil included and supplemented with some dried basil. The beans were mature, so took longer (and more water) than the 10 minutes prescribed in the recipe. The canned tomatoes probably produced a more concentrated tomato flavor than the fresh ones called for in the recipe (certainly than any available at this time of the year) so the complaint of some commenters that this dish was bland didn't apply. It actually was a great accompaniment to the salmon.

Not only was this a surprisingly elegant weeknight meal, I used up stuff from the fridge in a nicely serendipitous fashion.

Saturday Dinners with Yotam

Keeping with our enthusiasm for all things Ottolenghi and playing on Sunday Suppers at Lucques, we have been having dinner and a movie at home on Saturday and cooking from the Ottolenghi cookbooks.

So we finally got to try the "Roasted chicken with Jerusalem artichoke & lemon" when the farmer's market had some Jerusalem artichokes. We were probably a little too impromptu, because I gave it the minimum two-hour marinade instead of the ideal overnight, so we may not have gotten the full impact. Also, the pink peppercorns came through too strongly for my taste, whether because they were old or just because that's the way they taste. I'd cut back a second time. Lastly, we didn't get nearly enough tarragon, so that probably detracted as well.

It did nothing to dim our enthusiasm, however. We had better luck with "Lamb meatballs with barberries, yogurt & herbs." The Blue Rooster Farm supplied the ground lamb at its monthly visit to our farmer's market and Shemali's, the Middle Eastern store at Sutton Place, had the barberries, so we had a delicious concoction of meatballs, shallots and figs, topped with Greek yogurt. The sauce was rich and brown and the familiar combination of allspice, cinnamon, garlic and onions gave it all an exotic air.

The star so far, though, has been the "Chicken with caramelized onion & cardamom rice." As the authors say in the headnote, cooking the rice with the chicken obviates the need for stock and all the lovely flavors go into the rice. The 10 cardamom pods are not crushed or ground so the cardamom flavor remains very subtle, yet perfumes both the rice and the meat with that indefinable touch of the Orient. Typically, Ottolenghi and Tamimi flavor this at the end with chopped herbs -- cilantro, parsley and dill. Only on the second day -- because we make the full recipes so we really end up having Saturdays, Sundays and sometimes Mondays with Ottolenghi -- did we use the optional Greek yogurt and olive oil topping, and we'll never leave it off again.

We've also done some of the side dishes and I'll back to those another time.

Ottolenghi

The lamb shawarma recipe from Jerusalem is a prime example of why everyone is so wild about Ottolenghi -- it is a twist on an exotic Mediterranean specialty that turns it into a fresh and exciting dish.

We've been on an Ottolenghi kick and went to the book-signing he and his cooking partner, Sami Tamimi, did for Ottolenghi at the Sixth & I Synagogue. The interview, conducted somewhat ineptly by Joan Nathan, was not great, but did give you an impression of these two Israelis, one Jewish and the other Palestinian, who have taken the culinary world by storm with their London restaurants.

The lamb dish, which you have to all in love with when you see the photo, was the centerpiece of an all-Ottolenghi menu. The rub includes a baker's dozen of spices -- peppercorns, cloves, cardamom pods, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, sweet paprika, sumac, sea salt -- that get in part roasted, then ground and all mixed together. Grated fresh ginger, crushed garlic cloves, chopped cilantro, lemon juice and peanut oil are added to make a rub for the leg of lamb, which ideally gets marinated overnight. Then it is slow-roasted in a 325 oven for 4-1/2 hours, adding 1 cup of boiling water after the first 30 minutes and covering with aluminum foil for the last 3 hours to keep the spice crust from burning. Be sure to keep water in the pan and baste it every hour or so with the liquid. We followed the suggestion to add waxy potatoes, peeled and in wedges, to the roast for the last 1-1/2 hours.

The meat was fork-tender and delicious. The spice crust gave the dish some zing but the full lamb flavor came through well. It was going to be dry in any case and timing for guests kept it in the oven longer, so I would be sure the next time to have more liquid at the finish to ladle over the carved meat. The potatoes, which were very tasty, absorbed some liquid as well.

As sides we served the marinated eggplant with tahini and oregano and the cucumber and poppy seed salad from Ottolenghi. The small eggplants get cut into wedges and roasted, then marinated in a mix of chopped red chile, cilantro, oregano, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. After this sits for at least 2 hours, you top it with green tahini sauce for serving. The cucumber salad calls for small cucumbers -- which by some serendipity Whole Foods happened to have -- mixed with sliced red chiles, cilantro, white wine vinegar, sunflower oil, poppy seeds and superfine sugar. These were also delicious and harmonized well with the lamb. We served a good Bordeaux with the meal.

In their talk, Tamimi (who like Simone Beck and Louise Bertholle tends to get forgotten in all the hullabaloo over Yotam Ottolenghi) emphasized that much of their cooking comes back to garlic and lemon. When someone lamely asked what tools they suggest for the kitchen, Tamimi gamely answered "a lemon squeezer and a garlic press." Enough said.

Swordfish, Malaga style

I went to Malaga once and it was cold. A friend had offered a vacation condo in this Mediterranean resort after I sold my loft, but it was February and I had to keep the space heater going the whole time.

Nonetheless, the name conjures up hot weather and beaches, so for one of my bachelor fish dinners, I picked this recipe from Janet Mendel's My Kitchen in Spain. I had to cut down the recipe, of course, and just left out the ingredients I didn't have (I bought the swordfish before I found the recipe).

Saute chopped onion, chopped garlic, and chopped green pepper (missing) in olive oil for 5 minutes, then add diced tomato, white wine, parsley (missing), bay leaf, ground cloves, salt and pepper, and simmer to thicken sauce. Then add the swordfish steak(s) and cook in sauce, turning once, until cooked through. I didn't sprinkle it with sliced green olives to finish. I had it with white rice.

I find the taste of swordfish surprisingly mild given how oily and fishy it looks in its raw state. Here the white flaky cooked fish paired nicely with the tomato, onion and garlic.

Mendel has this nice touch of simple, tasty recipes that bring you the Mediterranean with just a couple of ingredients. "Malaga style," she explains in the headnote, means cooked with a sofrito that includes fresh tomatoes. Maybe next time I go it will be sunny and hot.

Slow-roasted duck breast

Here is a recipe with the shortest list of ingredients you can imagine: 2 moulard duck breasts, salt, pepper. No fat, no onion, no garlic, no spice, no herb, no rub, no marinade, no waiting.

And it tastes great! Molly Stevens does not hesitate to simply describe techniques in her All About Roasting, without dolling them up with superfluous directions or ingredients. Here you just use a sharp knife to cut a cross-hatch pattern in the skin (don't pierce through to the flesh), sear the duck breasts skin-side down in a skillet for 5-6 minutes (no need for extra fat since they start rendering fat immediately), then put on a flat rack on a sheet pan skin-side up into a 200-degree oven for 50 minutes, or until 135 degrees internal temperature for rare and 145 to 150 for medium rare (our choice).

The slow roast leaves the breasts juicy and tender, while the salt and pepper enhance the slightly gamy flavor of the duck and its fat. Just slice and serve, no further ingredients needed.

Stevens suggests using some of the rendered duck fat to saute greens as an accompaniment. We used a Brussels sprouts recipe from About.com, of all places, instead. This involved gently sauteeing diced bacon starting in a cold skillet until it renders fat and turns golden. Add the Brussels sprouts -- halved or quartered depending on how crunchy you want them -- and saute for a few minutes. Then add chicken stock, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in some butter and a squeeze of lemon juice and adjust seasonin at the end.

This is a great technique for preserving the green cabbagy flavor of the sprouts. The braising disperses the grease so it does not distract from or overpower the vegetable taste.

Bourbon Steak

I could hardly resist going to a restaurant that pairs two of my favorite things in its name, so we went on a special occasion for a very expensive but great meal.

You get what you pay for. Bourbon Steak offered not only excellent, creative dishes but service so good it almost eclipsed the food. From the friendly greetings, to the personable waiter, to the knowledgeable sommelier -- hey, you say, this is the way it's supposed to be, but as you know it so rarely is -- you just felt well taken care of. The waiter explained the signature dishes and why they were signature, without being pushy. The sommelier started his recommendations with a 100+ bottle, and, hearing no demurrals, moved on to 200+, and then 400+ before I reined him in, pointing to a Burgundy in the 50-80 range (that's as low as they get). He had nothing but good things to say about it and described it perfectly; it was a great accompaniment to the meal and, as he advised when he brought it, the last bottle they had.

The restaurant was chilly when we came in and the waiter actually fulfilled his promise to have them turn up the heat so that it was comfortable during the meal.

There was the de rigueur craft cocktail menu, so I ordered the signature bourbon-based Brown Derby, which was a nice drink, served up in a medium-sized coupe. Andrea stuck with a cosmo.

The amuse-gueule in the upscale steakhouse were three types -- herb, spicey (not too much) and something else -- of duck fat french fries each with its own matching sauce. They disappeared rapidly.

My octopus karma continued to function and I ordered their tasty "octopus poke" as a starter. Andrea indulged in a marvelous ahi tuna tatar, which was mixed with the yolk of a quail egg at the table and served with an overabundance of toast. I followed with a wagyu flatiron steak cooked a very rare medium-rare, and Andrea ordered a pork schnitzel with wild mushrooms that made her eyes pop out.

I was tempted by the 18-ounce bone-in strip, but decided the 10-ounce flatiron was more unusual and worth trying. It had the buttery mouth-feel the waiter had described but its different beef flavor takes some adjusting. It is lean meat and perhaps an acquired taste. I'm glad I tried it, but next time will probably opt for the more familiar Angus beef.

Andrea's schnitzel of Berkshire pork was nicely flattened and perfectly deep-fried in its fluffy breading. The wild mushrooms piled on top (with another egg) were delicious and almost too strong for the thin pork cutlet. Both dishes were ample and filling. We ordered a single side, the cassoulet with goat (meat), and it worked very well with both dishes.

We had mentioned the special occasion in our reservation and received two glasses of champagne on the house at the end of the meal as well as a complimentary mini-dessert. We had already ordered a butterscotch pot-de-creme that was a little too deconstructed for my taste.

The only real drawback was the gloomy decor, which doesn't quite succeed in conveying the expense-account feel the restaurant is clearly seeking. It was neither warm nor classy, nor really even close. The check, however, was perfectly convincing for an expense-account meal, though we were paying with our own money.