Skirt steak a la plancha, creamy sunchoke and turnip puree, cumin roasted carrots with thyme

INGREDIENTS

• skirt steak
• sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes)
  
• turnips
  
• cream
  
• salt
  
• pepper
• carrots
  
• cumin
  
• thyme
  

Peel sunchokes and turnips, cut into 1/2 inch cubes. You want a sunchoke to turnip ratio of about 3:2 or 3:1. Add to a pan with enough cream to braise/poach the sunchokes and turnips. You don't need to completely submerge them. Bring the cream to a boil, then reduce to medium-low heat. Simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove the root vegetables, reserving the cream. Puree the vegetables and add as much cream as you need to get the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper.

Peel and chop the carrots, toss with olive oil, thyme, salt, pepper, and cumin to taste. Roast at 350F for about 45 minutes.

Season the skirt steak with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Sear for 1 to 2 minutes on each side on a griddle over high heat.

Caprese

Here's a simple little snack I made with some nice local ingredients from Savenors. It's just organic cherry tomatoes, sliced thin, super fresh mozzerella from Fiore Di Nonno, a really good cheese maker based just up the street in Somerville, some nice thick, aged balsamic vinegar, Campo Corto olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little parsley. 

Fattoush

Fattoush is basically Lebanese panzanella. Rather than using an old baguette, fattoush is built around fried pieces of pita. I think the traditional ingredients include cucumber and tomato, but you can really add just about any vegetable you want. Abby and I had an amazing version of this salad at Oleana that included roasted eggplant, romanesco, pomegranate, and a bunch of other good stuff. For this version, I used a bunch of ingredients from this week's Boston Organics delivery. I also use pita chips instead of frying the pita myself.

INGREDIENTS
Dressing

• olive oil
• lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
• lemon zest
  
• mustard (1-2 tsp)
  
• salt, pepper

Base

• tahini
• Greek yogurt
• lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
  
• salt, pepper

Salad

• pea shoots
• 1/4-1/2 cup diced, roasted beets
• 1 green bell pepper,
• 1 apple
• 1-2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
• 1/4-1/3 cup carrots, diced
• 1/4 cup onion, diced
• 1/4 cup radish, diced
• 1 blood orange, cut into supremes
• parsley
• mint
• 1/8-1/4 cup olives, chopped
  
• feta
• salt, pepper
• sumac
• pita chips

Dice all of the vegetables into small, even pieces. Toss the veggies together, but leave the beets and the blood oranges separate. Tossing these together with everything else will just turn the whole thing pink. You also want to leave the pea shoots separate.

Mix up the lemon juice, zest, and mustard for the vinaigrette and add oil, stirring, until you get the taste you want. Season with salt and pepper.

Mix together the tahini and greek yogurt in a 1 to 4 ratio. For 1 T tahini and 4 T yogurt, add the juice of 1/4 to 1/2 lemon. Stir together, season with salt and pepper, and set aside.

Chop of parsley and mint and add to the vegetables. Toss the herbs and vegetables together with the vinnaigrette (reserve 1 T), and add some of the smaller pita chips. Season with salt, pepper, and sumac.

To plate, spread some of the yogurt mix around the bottom of the plate. You can sort of see this in the picture below.
Arrange a bed of larger pita chips on top of this base, and spoon some of the salad mix on top of this. As you are plating the salad, add the beets and blood oranges. Dress the pea shoots with the remaining vinaigrette and top the salad with the pea sheets and crumbled feta.

Boston Organics

We recently started getting a local produce box delivered to us from Boston Organics. Last week, our delivery included pea shoots, sunchokes, turnips, beets, celeriac, mushrooms, apples, tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes. These will make appearances in upcoming recipes.

Seared tuna, crispy rice cakes, and sesame spinach

INGREDIENTS
Tuna

• 2 servings tuna
• sesame seeds

Spinach

• Baby spinach (enough for 2 servings)
• 1 carrot
• 1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tsp dashi
  
• 1 clove minced garlic
  

Rice cakes

• 1.5 cups sushi rice
• 1-2 Tbsp rice vinegar
• Rice seasoning (Furikake), to taste

Cook the rice. Let it cool to and add vinegar as if you are making sushi rice. Mix in furikake to taste. Form the rice into patties and cook until crispy and golden brown on each side.

Julienne the carrot and cook until soft with a little oil. Add minced garlic and spinach. Cook until wilted. In a bowl, grind up the sesame seeds and mix in the soy sauce, vinegar, and dashi. Add this to the spinach and toss together.

Season the tuna with salt and pepper and coat one side with sesame seeds. Sear over high heat for one minute on each side.

(Pictured with a sauce made of miso, soy, dashi, ponzu, sake, and mirin)

Fish, Basque style

I think that making something "al Vasco" or "in the style of the Basque" just means that you use a lot of stewed peppers and onions. As this is a traditional dish, there are a million ways to make it. My version uses saffron, smoked paprika, thyme, and a little hot pepper to give the dish a really rich, warm taste. A lot of times, Basque style dishes include piquillo peppers. I didn't have any, but if you can get them, you might want to try adding them to the dish.

INGREDIENTS (for 2)

• 1 whole fish (branzino, trout, snapper, etc)
• 1 onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 tomato, seeded, and diced
• small potatos (enough for two servings)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1/2 to 1 cup chicken or veggie broth/stock
• a pinch of red pepper flakes
• a pinch of saffron
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp dried thyme or 2 tsp fresh thyme
• 1 T tomato paste
• parsley
• lemon
• salt
• pepper
• olive oil
  

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and preheat the oven to 400F. Cut the potatos in half or quarters, depending on the size, and boil for 5 minutes. Remove and let drain.

Cut the bell peppers in half and core them. Toss the potatos with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and two cloves of minced garlic. Place the potatos and the bell peppers, separately, in the oven and roast for 30 minutes.

Slice up the onion and cook with olive oil over medium high heat. Once the onions begin to cook down, reduce the heat to medium or medium low and let cook, stirring occasionally for another 20 minutes or so. You don't want them to fry, so pay attention to the heat and keep it low. You want to really bring out the sweetness.

When the peppers and potatoes are done roasting, set the potatos aside and place the peppers in a paper bag or a bowl covered in plastic and let sit for a couple minutes. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel off the skins and slice into long thin strips. Add to the pan with the onions along with two cloves of minced garlic and the diced tomato and cook on medium heat for a couple minutes. Add the wine to this mixture and turn up the heat to reduce it. Add the red pepper flakes, paprika, and tomato paste and mix everything together. Add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of stock along with the paprika and let simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. You may also want to add a teaspoon of red wine vinegar.

While the stew is simmering, season the fish with salt and pepper and cut vertical slits along both sides of the fish. Once the stew is done, place it in a roasting pan or oven safe dish large enough to hold the fish and mix together with the potatos. Add more broth if this mixture looks too thick. Place the fish on top of the potatos, and cover with some of the pepper mixture. Roast at 400F for 30 minutes.

Carefully remove the fish to a cooking sheet. Again, be careful. It is really easy to break the fish here. Place the fish under the broiler for a couple minutes. Keep an eye on it. You want to crisp the skin, but it goes from crisp to burned really quickly. While the fish is broiling, mix 1 to 2 teaspoons chopped parsley into the peppers. Transfer everything to a serving dish (if you didn't just cook it in the serving dish), and place the fish back on top. Squeeze a bit of lemon over everything, garnish with some more parsley, and eat it while its hot.