{Feast} A Modern Thanksgiving

photo by Yunhee Kim 

Throughout childhood, my mom's annual Thanksgiving was utterly classic-- a Butterball turkey, mashed potatoes, bagged stuffing, grandma's cranberry relish, turkey gravy, warm buttery dinner rolls, and two pies: pumpkin and pecan. The only discussion was whether to make mom's version of sweet potatoes (candied) or dad's (smashed with marshmallow topping), or both (the answer: both!).

The first Thanksgiving after I graduated from culinary school, my siblings put me up to making the whole meal. The mashed potatoes were riced (read: luxuriously lump free) and extra rich (yes, cream). The turkey was brined and the gravy herbed. The rolls were homemade, of course, and the stuffing a decadent, wild mushroom and sage number. My family said it was the best Thanksgiving meal they'd ever had. And then, agreed that they still wanted mom's henceforth. Ah, tradition. 

Truth? That's been a great deal for me--it's the one day of the year I usually don't cook. Plus, Thanksgiving cooking is epic. Super intense. You need a trunk full of ingredients. You need counter space, oven space. You need to wake up early to put in the turkey (deal breaker.). By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, I've already cooked  my heart out all year long; I'm more than happy to just show up to the meal, hungry. 

But somehow I always get lured into making dinner the night before. That's when I cook the meal I really want to eat--the meal I'd be making if I were hosting thanksgiving. This meal would star fish, my favorite protein, and would be decidedly autumnal and centerpiece-worthy. 

It would also be epically easy, because my days of ricing potatoes, folks, were over long ago. These days, I'm more likely to put that effort into getting the family to agree on what movie we'll watch after we've cleaned up, which, by the way, will take just minutes, since this whole meal roasts on one cookie sheet, unlike our beloved pilgrim's feast. 

This, friends, is the modern Thanksgiving. 

ROASTED WILD SALMON, MUSHROOMS AND SQUASH WITH HERB GREMOLATA | SERVES 4

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 organic acorn or delicata squash, seeded and thinly sliced

8 oz oyster mushrooms, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces

4 small shallots, peeled and quartered

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1 1 ½ -pound skin-on side of wild salmon or arctic char

1 handful sorrel or arugula, chopped

1 handful parsley, chopped

1/3 cup toasted pine nuts

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

Serves 4 {easily doubled or tripled} 

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Toss together 2 tbsp of the olive oil with the squash, mushrooms, and shallots in a medium bowl. Place in the bottom of a large oven-to-table baking dish and spread out evenly. Season with salt and pepper. Bake until squash is fork-tender and the mushrooms mostly roasted, with some golden and crispy parts, about 20 minutes.

Coat the salmon with 1 tbsp of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Lay the salmon on top of the vegetables and continue roasting until just cooked through, about 10 minutes more. The salmon should be pale pink on the outside, easily flaked with a fork and ever so translucent pink in the very center.

Meanwhile, stir together sorrel, parsley, pine nuts, and lemon zest and juice with the remaining 2 tbsp oil. Season with salt and pepper. Scatter the gremolata wildly all over the top. Bring the baking dish to the table still warm from the oven (or transfer the fish and mushrooms to your favorite platter before you add the gremolata) and serve portions of fish, squash and mushrooms with plenty of gremolata for each person. 

{clean eating} Black Radish Salad with Kale, Tokoyo Turnips, Almonds and Parmesan Cheese

This past weekend Greta, András and I were in Virginia and North Carolina, and we were bad—really bad. I’m talking buttery grits, sweet tea, biscuits and Nutter-Butters bad. So this week I’ve been craving nothing but kale salads and beet juice, the kind of cleansing food that gets me back on track, mentally and physically, from my sugar-induced slump. But then, there’s this cold that’s creeping in. And hot chocolate calls.

Sigh.

It’s nothing a good trip to the farmer’s market can’t fix. Here’s how it went. Greta and I set out for our weekly Wednesday trip to our teeny market, just two strides out my front door— our neighborhood’s greatest gift. I had two facts in my head as we went: First, the market is just week’s away from its winter hiatus, which starts after Thanksgiving, a deadline I don’t take lightly. And second, today we had just $20 cash, half our usual market stipend that has us in a week’s worth of fresh fruits and vegetables, a jug of cider and one cider donut apiece. What can you buy with $20 at the market? Amazing, intriguing vegetables—always cheaper than fruits—bunches of greens and piles upon piles of roots. Beets. Potatoes. Black Radish. Kale. Broccoli. Tokyo Turnips.

I saw a salad coming on.

Last week at an incredible dinner at Il Buco, I had a Grilled Filet of Spanish Mackerel with filet beans and raw Tokyo Turnips, a bracing, surprising success that I haven’t stopped thinking about since. The turnips were calling my name, as were the black radishes whose brooding, elephantine skin conceals their gleaming white core.

I had a vision of a clean salad forming, full of crisp, fall flavors, knobby bits of aged crystalline Parmesan cheese, and roasted almonds. All crunch, substance, flavor. Back home, as I worked my way around the roots with my camera, I got hungrier, so I threw a few potatoes and some garlic in the oven to roast. And the smell.... well, you know the smell of roasted garlic and potatoes.

What’s left, after my split personalities went their separate ways, is two different but equally delicious salads: one pure and raw, the essence of every vegetable, the other, warm and raw melting together, the give of roasted potato between every bite of earthy kale and crisp radish. Both alive. Both the kind of salad you might enjoy, say, as a lunch or a first course, of if you’re still in the mood for being bad, as an easy meal eaten along side a few fine slices of charcuterie with a glass of Chimay. So much for clean. Either way, lean or lux, both are at home on any table—carnivore or vegetarian. Take your pick:

~

Black Radish Salad with Broccoli, Tokyo Turnips, Kale, Almonds and Parmesan Cheese

Serves 2 to 4

½ head Tuscan/ Black Kale/Cavolonero, cut in bite-sized pieces

3 tablespoons high quality extra virgin olive oil

Juice of ½ lemon

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 small head fresh broccoli, florets and stems, thinly sliced lengthwise

1 large black radish, thinly sliced or cut in bite-sized pieces

2 small Tokyo Turnips, thinly sliced

4 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, broken in bits

1/3 cup roasted, unsalted almonds, roughly chopped

Fleur de sel or sel gris, for garnish

Toss the kale together with the olive oil and lemon juice in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Massage the kale, squeezing and rubbing the leaves together with your hands, working the oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper into the leaves to flavor and tenderize them. Toss together with the broccoli, turnips, parm, and almonds. Divide between plates. Garnish with fleur de sel and more ground pepper; serve at room temperature.

~

Black Radish Salad with Tokyo Turnips, Roasted Potatoes, Apples, and Manchego

Serves 2 to 4

1 handful fingerling or banana potatoes, halved lengthwise
4 cloves garlic, in their skin, smashed

5 tablespoons high quality extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

½ head Tuscan/ Black Kale/Cavolonero, cut in bite-sized pieces

Juice of ½ lemon

1 small crisp, tart apple, thinly sliced

1 large black radish, thinly sliced or cut in bite-sized pieces

2 small Tokyo Turnips, thinly sliced

1/3 cup roasted, unsalted almonds, roughly chopped

2 ounces Manchego cheese, thinly sliced

Fleur de sel or sel gris, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Toss the potatoes, garlic, 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt and pepper together until coated and spread onto a baking sheet in a single layer. Roast until soft with golden brown edges, about 30 minutes.

Toss the kale together with the remaining olive oil and lemon juice in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Massage the kale, squeezing and rubbing the leaves together with your hands, working the oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper into the leaves to flavor and tenderize them. Toss together the roasted potatoes, turnips, apples, and almonds. Divide between plates. Scatter the cheese over the top. Garnish with fleur de sel and more ground pepper; serve at room temperature.

Photos and Recipes © Sarah Copeland 2012

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Saving September + White Risotto with Corn, Carrots and Kale

It’s been over a decade since I was in college, but something about this weekend reminded me of my first September at the University of Missouri, and my inaugural Saturday game day. So excited to join the ranks of collegians, I dressed up in crispy new jeans and a cozy cardigan—a look borrowed from J-Crew. Not long after joining my new friends in the bleachers, I found the beating sun explained why the older girls wore sundresses instead. In Missouri, summer hangs on.

In New York, autumn reigns. At our Saturday market in Socrates Sculpture Park, the crowd was unapologetically bundled in snug sweaters, sporting the season’s newest boots. Dozens of hands passed over peaches for pumpkins. I adore fall foods, but for the first time I can remember, the concord grapes and plums, heaped in their green cardboard cartons, are just barely tempting. We have plenty of time for that, I think. It’s only early September.

How wrong I am. After an hour in the park in thin layers, we had to retreat home and start again—Greta in a sweater dress and tights. Tights! At the market, she reached directly for the plums and concords—her wiser internal radar insisting it’s time to move on. So we filled our basket with them. But, there was still corn. And tomatoes. Proof that summer really happened, and just days ago.  

I’m grabbing hold of those ears, 50-cents a-piece regardless, shaving their kernels over warm bowls of risotto with Lacinato kale and young purple carrots. And, since it could very well be my last for a while, I’m even pouring a chilled glass of rose for Sunday lunch.

I'll come around. Back at home from the park, where I’d left the windows wide open out of summer habit, I cooked a pot of warm applesauce, heady with cinnamon, to warm us. I’ll admit, it’s helping me turn the corner. But slowly.....slowly. One spoonful at a time. 

~

White Risotto with Corn, Carrots and Kale

Serves 2 to 4

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus for cooking vegetables

1/2 onion, finely chopped

1 cup Arborio rice

1/3 cup dry white wine

2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups hot water {or organic chicken broth}

Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus for garnish

1 to 2 ears corn, to preference, kernels shaved from the cob

1 bunch young heirloom carrots, trimmed and scrubbed, halved lengthwise if large

1 small bunch Lacinato (Tuscan) kale

Heat the olive oil in a heavy saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until it is soft and translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat with the oil. Stir in the wine and cook until the wine has evaporated, 1 minute more. 

Stir in 2 cups of the hot water {or broth}, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and keep at a simmer, removing the lid to stir occasionally, until rice is al dente, about 20 to 25 minutes. Most of the liquid should be absorbed and the rice just cooked.

While the rice cooks, heat another tablespoon of oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the carrots and brown slightly in the oil. Add enough water to come about 1/3 of the way up the carrots and cook until just fork tender, but still deep in color. Add the kale and stir to wilt, 5 minutes more. Add the corn and cook until the kernels turn bright yellow but are still crisp, 1 minute more. Season the vegetables well and use a slotted spoon to remove them from the liquid.

Stir in another 1/2 cup hot cups of water to the risotto as needed; add the butter and cheese and stir. Stir in the vegetables, or serve the risotto in bowls topped with warm vegetables and coarsely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. 

All Photos © Sarah Copeland 2012

Golden Zucchini Bread + A Slow Re-Entry into Reality

{photo by Sara Remington}

It's the last day of the endless zucchini feast, and my first day back at my desk after 30 days in planes, trains and automobiles. Although I'm vowing to give up my pastry habit that started on our trip to Hungary, and get back to our grains and vegetable routine, today I'm craving a slow re-entry into reality. I want to stand, glassy-eyed, methodically shredding dewy garden zucchini over a bowl with a box grater,  stirring it with my favorite wooden spoon-- the one I haven't seen in far too long--into a luxe brown-sugar and whole-wheat batter. While the batter ribbons out into my bread tins, I'll think about how in the world to catch this site up on all it missed in Hungary and Helsinki and Chicago, and write the day away to the sweet smell of fresh baking bread...

~

Golden Zucchini Bread

From The Newlywed Cookbook 

Makes 2 large loaves

{full of goodies} In July, when the garden is bursting with zucchini and the market is practically giving them away, make this slightly sweet bread with just enough veggies to make it good for you. This is divine eaten just a touch warm, with thick slabs of cream cheese spread on for the weekends. Farmer’s cheese or fresh ricotta, both high in protein and much lower in fat, make this a go-to breakfast treat as easy for everyday as it is elegant for breakfast with friends.

4 tbsp/55 g unsalted butter, plus more for the pans, at room temperature

1 cup/200 g lightly packed dark brown sugar

⅔ cup/130 g granulated sugar

3 large eggs

½ cup/120 ml grapeseed or vegetable oil

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

3 cups/400 g white whole-wheat/wholemeal flour

1½ tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp fine sea salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 large zucchini/courgette, grated {about 3 cups/720 ml}

1 firm Bartlett/Williams pear, cored and grated {about 1 cup/240 ml}

¾ cup/85 g chopped toasted walnuts {about 3 oz}, plus more for garnish

¼ cup/40 g golden raisins/sultanas

2 tbsp sesame seeds

½ cup/120 ml farmer’s cheese, ricotta cheese, or cream cheese, for serving

Sliced figs or pears, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C/gas 4. Butter two 9-by-5-in/23-by-12-cm loaf pans/tins. Line them with parchment/baking paper, butter the parchment/baking paper, and set aside.

Beat the butter and sugars in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, on medium speed until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating between each addition. Add the oil and vanilla and stir to combine.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda/bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Mix half the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and stir together. Stir in the remaining dry ingredients with a spatula, along with the zucchini/courgette, pear, nuts, raisins, and sesame seeds.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Sprinkle with additional walnuts. Bake until the bread springs back when lightly touched, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out dry with some crumbs, about 50 minutes. Cool on a rack 10 minutes. Remove from the pan, slice, and serve warm with a thick schmear of cheese and sliced figs.

P.S. Guess what. I finally got it. Two c's, one n. That's Zucchini.

{in the test kitchen} playing with....

bloomsdale spinach. snap peas. fiddlehead ferns. strawberries. ramps. 

To Market, for Sour Cherries

In many parts of the country today is a market day. Except in my little corner of the world where the market just 40 yards from my front door doesn’t open until July. Instead of lamenting the fact that my borough is a beat behind, I’m digging into the tastes and textures of the world markets featured in the latest issue of Saveur , which pays tribute to this season’s produce all around the globe.

The issue also features my article about the plump, glimmering sour cherries that pop up this time of the year all over Hungary, and in the Veszprem farmer’s market where we shop when we visit. And it’s perfect timing, since tomorrow is the first day of July which means cherries –sweet, golden, ruby red or sour— will likely be popping up in you’re your corner of the world too.

{Anya's Sour Cherry Cake, click here for the recipe} 

András mother, whom we call Anya {mother}, turns her sour cherries into a simple toothsome sponge cake she calls kevert meggyesem {my mixed sour cherries} made with graham flour, the perfect compliment to your cherry of choice. Saveur also published her recipe, so now it can be yours too. 

Cookie Crate

{Handmade Christmas, part iii}

What's that, you already baked your cookies? Well then, Turn this summer’s berry box into a cookie crate. Wrap cookies in twos for couples and kids, fours for families and grown-ups, and stamp with custom stamps, stickers or labels. We have a case of these pinch-bottom cookie and candy bags leftover from our wedding, which are handy to have on hand. You too can get a lifetime supply of them here, but brown paper sandwich bags take to dressing up just as well.