The Big
Five
In 1979, I learned about the
Cajun "big three," onion, celery and green pepper,
ingredients that make Cajun food unique. Every cook has a
short list of ingredients they love. I've assembled my own
list, The Big Five. Not necessarily all five in one dish
(points are scored for such a dish, however.) Just a short
list of favorite and monumental
ingredients:
Citrus
*Alliums *Tomatoes *Rice *Crustacea
1.
Citrus -
After ten cold and rainy days in Florence and Venice, I was
eager for the warmth of Southern Italy's Mediterrean
winter. The next morning the all-night train from Florence
to Sicily arrived at the ferry terminal to board the ferry
to cross the Straits of Messina.
At
the station, a young man was hawking bright beautiful
oranges wrapped in cones of paper. Leaning from the window,
using my best cookbook Italian, I yelled "Arancia!" to get
his attention. He answered, "Si, Arancini", took my handful
of lire and handed me two through the train window. Once I
had them in hand, I realized my mistake. My breakfast of
oranges turned out to be a rice ball moulded around tomato
sauce and cheese, dipped in bread crumbs and fried to a
golden hue, an unusual but tasty bite. Another surprise
brought on by my fascination with food, oranges and other
citrus. Sicily in the winter is full of the fragrance of
citrus in bloom, but that's another story.
I
love the very idea of citrus. Every part of it is
well-designed. Citrus come in a beautifully colored
package, with different, but altogether pleasant, smells
and tastes for the wrapping and the flesh. The cooler the
night-time temperatures where they are grown, the more
intense the color will be. The acidity is well balanced
with the sweetness and it helps balance the fats and oils
we use in cooking. A single piece of citrus can also be a
main ingredient in many types of dishes, including salads,
main course, drinks and desserts.
In
addition, the climates in which citrus grows well are also
climates where we humans flourish. Watching a big citrus
tree full of orange or yellow fruit move in the warm breeze
of a winter afternoon makes me pretty pleased that I have
joined them in their habitat.
How
do I love them? Let me count the ways.
Big
"Indian River" grapefruit from the area around Vero Beach,
Florida are the best grapefruit I have ever eaten. I have
stopped a few times at Hale's Orchards near Vero Beach and
picked a bag of their best plus a few quarts of fresh juice
for the road. I don't know a sweeter grapefruit.
Blood
oranges always appeal to me, both Moros and Sanguinellas.
Their complex citrus and berry flavor makes them great to
eat from the hand and a spectacular sorbet. The best I've
had were in Sicily from the slopes of Mount Etna on that
early winter trip in 1988.
Key
limes or Mexican limes are the mainstay of tropic drinks
and the famous Key Lime Pie. Small, but with big flavor. In
a well-ripened fruit, the skin turns yellow.
Meyer
improved lemons are my favorite lemon. A very popular
backyard fruit in the San Francisco Bay Area because of its
tolerance of cool weather. It's one of the most fragrant of
the citrus. Its unusual sweet juice seems lower in acid
than most lemons and thus allows the cook to increase the
amount of flavor in a recipe without making it too acidic.
Mandarins:
Clementines imported from North Africa or our domestic
Pixies are my favorite for just peeling and eating. Why
make sangria when you can simply alternate a segment of
mandarin orange with a sip of red wine?
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The
"Simple" Daiquiri - I feel that the most elemental way to
experience citrus is in the daiquiri, shaken not whirled.
It's a combination of three tropical ingredients and one
decidedly not tropical at all (ice.) When a correct balance
is reached , the daiquiri is very cold, sweet and sour,
fragrant of rum and lime. Such perfection, that if you
start to think of it as limeade, it will soon be your
undoing.
While
I have had some marvelous slushy daiquiris, whirled in
Waring Blenders (most notably at the restaurant "El
Horizonte" high above the Caribbean near the Southeast
coast of Puerto Rico) and have read the extensive homages
to them by Hemingway, I believe simple and shaken is best.
A daiquiri relies on the smooth feel of the drink to impart
its flavor to your tongue, and little bits of ice simply
get in the way.
The
Simple Daiquiri
For
each drink, mix 1 ounce of Mount Gay "Sugar Cane" Rum with
the juice of one small key lime. Add 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons
of sugar and shake the mixture until the sugar dissolves.
Then add 3-4 cracked ice cubes and shake until the mixture
is very cold, strain and serve up in a stemmed glass.
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2.
Tomatoes -
Fruit or vegetable? I won't even get into that discussion,
which takes us nowhere. Whichever it is, I just can't
imagine cooking without the tomato.
And,
of course, tomatoes are not just for cooking. In my
opinion, the BLT is more about the T than the B or the L.
And when you have really good tomatoes, here's my favorite
meal: place sliced tomatoes on a plate with very, very
thinly sliced red or sweet onions, top with crumbled
Roquefort, drizzle with a good green olive oil and Balsamic
vinegar, and add a little black pepper.
As
the store-bought tomato has declined, I have sought out
alternate ways to find good tomato flavor. The best
solution is to have my friend Debbie Sease give you some of
the tomatoes that she has grown in her huge plot at her
neighborhood community garden in Washington, D.C. Every
year she grows several varieties, and being a wonderful
cook, her priority is flavor. Failing that, frequent
farmer's markets.
When
confronted with those in the store, I follow two rules: buy
the smallest size available, such as cherry tomatoes, or
buy plum tomatoes and make Baked Tomato Spaghetti (see next
recipe). In recent years, I've also found small boxes of
1-1/2 to 2 inch tomatoes imported from the Netherlands that
were very flavorful. Not suprisingly, they were expensive
and buying them isn't exactly supporting your local farmer,
but they are worth looking out for in the dead of winter
when you are desperate for the taste of a good tomato.
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Baked
Tomato Spaghetti - When baked in an oven for an hour at
high temperature (or several hours at much lower settings),
tomatoes get sweeter. This helps a supermarket tomato lose
its modern characteristics of pale, hard and tasteless. The
tomatoes dry out somewhat in the oven, concentrating their
flavor, and the high temperature allows some carmelization,
two sure ways to create flavor. I found this receipe in
Sunset Magazine and have made it many, many times.
Baked
Tomato Spaghetti
12
medium (1 1/2 lbs) of Roma style
tomatoes
Salt and
pepper
6
garlic cloves, minced
1/3
cup minced Italian parsley
Olive
oil
1
lb of dried spaghetti (or other pasta: bucatini or
percatelli are nice)
1
tablespoon dried basil leaves or 1/4 cup
fresh
Grated
Parmesan, Romano or a mixture
Cut
tomatoes in half lengthwise and set cut side up in an
appropriately sized baking dish. Combine garlic, parsley
and a few tablespoons of oil along with salt and pepper.
Put a teaspoon or so of the garlic mixture on the top of
each tomato half, using up all of the mixture. Salt and
pepper the tomatoes and drizzle with more olive oil. Bake
the tomatoes for about an hour at 400 degrees until they
are browned, but not burned.
Prepare
the spaghetti according to the package. Remove about 8-12
of the best looking tomatoes and place on a plate. Using a
spoon, remove and discard the skins from the remaining
tomatoes, mash them and add the basil. Stir in the cooked
pasta to coat it with the sauce and add some cheese. This
is ideally done in the tomato baking pan to take advantage
of the pan juices. Place the reserved tomatoes on top and
sprinkle with some more cheese. Serves four.
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3.
Alliums - In
the long history of the evolution of plants, nature sure
got it right with the genus Allium. The genus includes many
varieties including Allium cepa (onions, shallots, chives
and green onions), Allium porrum (leeks) and Allium sativum
(garlic).
In
one of those "do-I-have-the-wrong-job?" moments, I listened
intently one morning on a Washington, D.C.-bound plane to a
veteran vegetable man instructing his new salesman.
"The
Vidalia onion? You haven't heard of it? Why, it is simply
the Granex 1015 onion stock grown in the low sulphur sandy
soil near Vidalia, Georgia and marketed under a regional
trade name. All the so-called sweet onions are the same
Granex stock grown in a local low sulphur soil. The sulphur
makes an onion hot. Walla Walla, Maui, Texas Sweet, and
Vidalia. They are all the same story."
I
dreamed for a while that morning about becoming an allium
expert. But I've stuck with my day job.
Alliums
are at their best when slowly cooked to bring out their
sweetness. Again, carmelization can transform the harshness
of a raw onion into a mellow flavor that lingers and
mingles with other ingredients. Baking whole garlic heads
or shallots in a hot oven can produce a soft, sweet allium
spread that transforms bread or pasta. Individual cloves of
garlic can be toasted in their skins in a hot dry skillet
to the same effect.
----------------------
French
Onion Soup - What better way to taste the flavors of
carmelized, sweet onions than with French onion soup? I got
this receipe from Cook's Illustrated Magazine a few years
ago and now swear by their use of red onions and deep
carmelization. Cook's Illustrated is a great resource to
help you make the best possible version of old favorites.
French
Onion Soup Gratinee
2
tablespoons butter
5
medium red onions (3 lbs) sliced thin
salt
7 3/4 cups
of broth (beef, chicken, vegetable or a
combination)
1/4
cup red wine
2
sprigs of fresh parsley
1
sprig of fresh thyme
1
bay leaf
1
tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
Ground
black pepper
1
baguette cut on the bias into 3/4"
slices
4 1/2 ounces
of sliced swiss cheese (1/16" thick)
3
ounces of grated Asiago cheese
Melt
the butter in a soup kettle or dutch oven over medium heat.
Add the onions and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, stir to coat
thoroughly. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions are
reduced and syrupy and the inside of the pot is coated with
a deep brown crust, about 30 to 35 minutes. Stir in the
broth, wine, parsley, thyme and bay leaf, scraping the
bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon to incorporate brown
bits of the crusty onions. Simmer about 20 minutes to blend
flavors. Discard herbs and add vinegar. Salt and pepper to
taste.
To
serve, place 1 1/2 cup of soup in a oven-proof bowl.
Preheat broiler. Place the bowls on a baking dish. In each
bowl place two baguette slices. On each slice place a
partial slice of swiss cheese. Sprinkle the Asiago on top
and broil until brown, about 10 minutes. Serves six.
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4.
Rice - Rice
is a key ingredient in so many dishes that I love to cook
and eat. Many people miss the strength and versatality of
rice by only eating it plain, white and boiled. Might as
well eat bread only by the slice and never discover the
glories of a sandwich. What makes rice so great for cooking
is that it has a mild non-competitive taste, allowing it to
soak up and support the flavors of the broth and other
ingredients.
Memorable
rice dishes include: Squid Ink Risotto, Paella Valencia,
Moros y Christianos (Cuban black beans and rice), Cajun Red
Beans and Rice, Arroz con Pollo, Jambalaya, Nasi Goreng,
Puerto Rico's Asopao, and Risi e Bisi (Italian rice and
peas).
My
favorite rice is Tilda Basmati. It is good enough to eat
plain (my highest praise.) It is my first choice for
Indian-style dishes. There is a beautiful baby basmati rice
named Kalijira. For risottos, paellas and the like,
short-grained rices such as arborio or carnaroli are the
ticket. For Southern and Caribbean dishes, a long-grain
Carolina or Texmati rice is recomended.
There
are other rices, but they are most often served plain,
steamed or boiled. While they can be a great foil to a
spicy curry, that's not what I have in mind when I speak of
rice as an ingredient. Sushi lives large because of its
rice, flavored with sugar and vinegar, and how the rice
then sets off the flavor of the fish, but that, too, is
another story.
----------------------
Pilau
Rice - This is a recipe for a delicious rice dish from
Elizabeth David's "Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the
English Kitchen" first published in 1970. Ms David is my
favorite writer of "cookery books", more on her later.
Here's how she describes the making of her Pilau Rice, also
sometimes known as Pilaf.
Elizabeth
David's Pilau Rice
"There
are Egyptian, Turkish, Persian, Indian, Chinese and
goodness knows how many other systems of cooking and
favoring pilau rice. One of my own recipes, evolved from an
Indian method with flavourings which are predominately
Levantine.
***
"Using
the best quality thin-grain rice sold in the Indian shops
under the name Basmati the initial ingredients and
preparations are as follows: 1 tumbler of rice [note: her
tumbler holds 6 ounces of rice] and 2 tumblers of water.
"Put
the rice in a bowl and cover it with water. Leave it to
soak for an hour or so.
"Cooking
and flavouring ingredients are 1 oz. of clarified butter,
one small onion, 4 cardamom pods, two teaspoons of cumin
seeds or ground cumin, a teaspoon of tumeric powder, 2
teaspoons of salt, a bay leaf of two, two tumblers of
water.
"Melt
the butter in your rice-cooking pot or saucepan and in it
cook the sliced onion for a few seconds, until it is
transparent. It must not brown. This done, stir in the
cardamom seeds extracted from their pods and the cumin
seeds, both pounded in a mortar, and the tumeric. The
latter is for colouring the rice a beautiful yellow, as
well as for its flavour, and the object of cooking the
spices in the fat is to develop their aromas before the
rice is added. This is an important point.
"Drain
the rice, and put it into the butter and spice mixture.
Stir it around until it glistens with the fat. Add the
salt. Pour in the two tumblers of water and let it come to
a boil fairly fast. Put in the bayleaf.
"Let
the rice cook steadily, uncovered, over medium heat until
almost all the water is absorbed and holes begin to appear
in the mass. This will take almost 10 minutes.
"Now
turn the heat as low as possible . Over the rice put a
thickly folded absorbent tea cloth, and on the top of the
cloth (use an old one; the tumeric stains) the lid of the
pan. Leave undisturbed, still over the lowest possible
heat, for 20 to 25 minutes. At the end of this time the
rice should be quite tender and each grain separated. Fork
it round, turn into a warmed serving bowl.
"The
rice should be a fine yellow colour and mildly spiced."
----------------------
5.
Crustacea -
I figure that I've cooked a few tons of shrimp since 1980.
Not all by myself, but let's say I was very involved. But
shrimp is only one of the delicious members of this family.
I've enjoyed lobster, spiny and clawed; crabs, Dungeness,
king, red, blue, rock, snow and soft-shelled; gooseneck
barnacles; langostines; crawfish; shrimp and prawns; and
even Moreton Bay Bugs, when I was in Australia in 1998. No
krill. At least, not yet.
I
got my start with crustacea as a member of a large family
on one of our many summer vacations to Maine. When I was
still in grammar school, my dad bought a steamed lobster
from a roadside stand and we kids got our share of it in
the backseat of the car. As the youngest, I think what I
got was a lobster antennae, that I simply sucked on for the
flavor. It was a transforming moment, elemental food, close
to a caveman's treat: a body-part cracked with the teeth
and sucked on for bits and juices and flavor. Many are
put-off by food too close to the hoof or the fin, but not
me. This is one of the pleasures of crustacea: crack goes
the exoskeleton. When butter and garlic are also in
attendance, you know it's going to be good.
----------------------
Scampi
West Palm Beach -This is a recipe that I first made in the
early 80s from directions in an Al McClane fish cookbook.
Al was a famous sportfisherman who lived in south Florida.
This recipe quickly became a favorite. In 1986, on a visit
to Florida to see Haley's Comet, I went to dinner at a Palm
Beach restaurant. On the menu, I saw a familar sounding
scampi dish. I asked them if they were always located in
Palm Beach, and they responded, "No, we used to be in West
Palm." This recipe produces a better dish than they did,
but it's always fun to go to the source and compare.
Scampi
West Palm Beach
2
lbs of medium to large shrimp, peeled and
butterflied
3/4
cup of melted butter
1/4
cup olive oil
2
tablespoons minced garlic
2
tablespoons lemon juice
1/2
teaspoon dry mustard
1
teaspoon worcestershire sauce
1/2
teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/2
teaspoon oregano
1/2
teaspoon basil
1/2
teaspoon tarragon
1/2
teaspoon salt
1/2
cup white wine
4
tablespoons of finely minced parsley
1
lb of spinach linguine
grated
cheese
Heat
oven to 400 degrees. In a saute pan, combine the butter and
olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, mustard, pepper, herbs,
salt and 1/2 of the parsley. Simmer until garlic softens.
Dredge the shrimp in this mixture and place the shrimp on a
shallow baking dish. Add the wine to the sauce pan and
simmer to reduce mixture to half its original volume. Spoon
a little of the resulting sauce over the shrimp. Keep the
remaining sauce warm.
Place
the linguine in salted, boiling water and cook al dente.
While the pasta is boiling, place the shrimp in the oven.
When the pasta is done, the shrimp should be cooked. Drain
the pasta. Place a mound of pasta on each plate and place a
few shrimp on top. Distribute the remaining shrimp and any
baking pan sauces among the plates. Top each with the
simmered and reduced sauce, a bit of parsley, and some
grated cheese. Serves six.
