Zucchini Redux

Yesterday's harangue on the elusive flavor of zucchini led to some interesting feedback, a very nice dinner, and great conversation. One reader sent a link that had some recipes for the subject of interest, copied here for your convenience:

Zucchini. Everyone wonders what to do with zucchini. Well, if you grow our Striato d'Italia or other zucchini varieties, you won't have to wonder how to get rid of them. They taste good, so they go quickly. Secondly, you treat them like an Italian. Eat lots of the zucchini flowers (prevent a zuke); pick them when small, no more than five inches and they are nice even smaller. For the bigger ones (up to 8 inches or so), go to # 3 below.


1. For the flowers, simply pick them when they are open, remove the stamens inside the flower, dip them in beaten egg, dredge them in some flour, then fry them in olive oil. You can also stuff them and then fry them.


2. For small zucchini, simply split them in half, marinate them an hour or two in some olive oil & minced garlic, grill them lightly.


3. For the bigger ones, do them as my mother did. Slice them on a diagonal @ 1/8 inch thick. Dip them in beaten egg, then seasoned flour. Fry in some olive oil until crisp but not burned. Add some salt & pepper. Serve at room temperature.

Another reader left a comment on the blog (now published there), but again copied here for your convenience:

Wash them, cut in to 3/4" “slabs” the long way
Soak in roasted garlic olive oil 3 minutes, season with fresh herbs S&P
Grill on pre-heated grill, yes the oil will create fire and char the Zucc so be carful - yes; it will taste good!


It was this last suggestion (note similarity to #2 above) that turned into a guest and the great dinner in which that recipe was tried. Amazingly, our neighbors were “out”, so our's came from Shoppers yesterday, but they were fresh and nice looking. Besides the Zucc’s we had a wonderful salad of sliced local tomatoes, some creamy blue cheese (instead of the more mundane fresh “mozz”) and dressed with fresh basil and some of the roasted garlic olive oil. The protein was (yes, I’ll admit it) a very nice marinated pork tenderloin, grilled. Some visuals to whet your appetite:





I will also admit that the zucchini’s were very tasty, with a nice smoky finish from the grill, and more fresh herbs –thyme, parsley, salt and pepper. The char on the zucc’s was a nice touch.

After appetizers, wine with the dinner we lapsed into a very interesting discussion on the subject of “flavor”. It certainly gave me something to think about, and may alter my opinion of the vegetable in question. Instead of focusing on the ingredient (zucc’s, squash, legumes, etc.) itself, the true evaluation should be done on the finished preparation. That is, (probably somewhat clumsily stated) one should be permitted to take into account the skill of the chef and method of preparing the dish before any judgement of it. Consider the whole, not just the individual ingredients. Therefore, although biting a hunk of raw zucchini may not be very rewarding, if you wait until it has been sliced, marinated, grilled and dressed, you might find that product very acceptable, a good dish that just happens to contain (in this case) zucchini. The method of preparation can consider the main ingredient, like say, mushrooms have nice inherent flavor so maybe just a light dusting of flower and sautéed in butter is fine. For the “milder” zucchini, maybe a more aggressive idea would work. I hope this makes some sense. What a great way to spend the evening.

Oh yes, the wine to go with the pork and veggies was dug deep from the flutter cellars. Good company deserves good wine.





And, since we were in residence, we compromised our
DFD

Vegetable Confession

Okay, I’m gonna do it. I have been working up to this a while, but have been afraid to really say it.. But I have to get this off my chest. Here it is: Zucchini’s have no taste. There, I said it. You wonder why your neighbors show up giving you handfuls of ‘em? Maybe there’s a pile by the coffee mess at work? Bags left on your doorstep? Guess what - people just want to give them away because they just don’t taste like anything. Lots of recipes try to make them into something, like maybe coating with batter and deep frying them. Just a vehicle for holding the tasty batter. Coat ‘em with Panko bread crumbs? Panko sure is good.. I know, let’s make bread or cake with them. There’s a flavor bomb! Stuff them with chicken? How about a beef pie? Anything to add some flavor. Just sautéed with butter and salt? Nothing. They sure are pretty, glossy green, firm, nothing.

Home grown tomatoes? Peppers? Fine. You can tell the difference. Fresh herbs? Wonderful - a world apart. Fresh zucchini?

Any recipes gladly accepted.

Even if you have the tasteless squash,
DFD

Words on a Wednesday

A short (well, it didn’t exactly turn out that way) post today while you’re “digesting” the salmon blitz of yesterday..(see posted comment to that)

Event O’The Day

In the never ending stuff to do department, there will be a (what may be a first for Lexington Park) book signing today at Blue Wind Gourmet. The book is: "Woman of the Vine" by Deborah Brenner, who started a consortium of female winemakers: "Featuring hand-crafted, limited production wines, Women of the Vine Cellars unites award winning women winemakers from around the world under one brand. It is the first art gallery of artisan women winemakers designed to showcase their individual styles and nuances of their regions." Ms. Brenner will be at the signing (and tasting) from 4:30 to 7:00…

Buzz around the park:

Bombay Garden, or whatever the name was of the place that arose from the “The Roost” has not surprisingly shuttered. In its place will be another in the growing number of “pub” themed places.. Good luck folks, I hope you have the money to lose. Doomed by location, location, location.

I guess “Rick’s Cheese Steaks” is still slated to be taken over by the other side, “Donovan’s Pub”. Whoops!! There’s that word again!

And hey! Let’s not stop there, the old Petruzzi’s has morphed into DB something, an Irish themed pub (is that redundant?). I have not heard any reports..

Lastly, word is that the Coffee Quarter in San Souci is trying to branch out from caffeine and offer beer, wine, and liquor, pending licensing. Didn’t we hear something like that about Starbucks?? Have belt or two, drink some coffee…

Interesting to note that all of the above seem to revolve around alcohol… I guess times are tough demanding drastic solutions..

Consumer Reportism of the Culinary Sort..

Received my “Cook’s Illustrated” yesterday (with pictures in black and white, unlike some blogs I know). I used to place this publication at the top of the food rags, but I think it’s slipping. The old “cooking for engineers” approach has dwindled somewhat, and now there are articles with titles like: “Foolproof Vinaigrette"; “Rethinking Sunday Gravy”; and “Secrets to a Perfect Cup of Coffee”. A good practice is to avoid any article with the word “secret” in it. Further, in the Quick Tips section, there’s this gem entitled: “Warming Coffee Mugs”. It points out that when pouring coffee into a cold mug, the mug absorbs heat making the coffee cool. Gosh! Really! Wow! I had no idea! And so they pass along a brilliant Tip from some guy in Nashville Tenn., who tells us how to put hot tap water into the mug while the coffee is brewing! Boy oh Boy you just can’t beat good old American ingenuity. Who would have thought..Epiphany! My life has changed...

And to pick up the consumer report angle, in the Notes from Readers section, there was a question about “What’s White Soy Sauce?” In the course of a (to be fair)pretty informative answer, they happen to mention their “favorite Soy Sauces”. They turn out to be those common household names which we all know: Lee Kum Kee Tabletop Soy Sauce (for cooking) and Ohsawa Nama Shoyu Organic Unpasteurized Soy Sauce (for a condiment). “Hey Honey! Stop by Giant on your way home and pick up some Lee Kum Kee – we’re running low”. All they missed was the little asterisk leading to the famous phrase – “Available in some specialty shops”. Yeah, right, like in Japan.

DFD

A Fishy Story...

Through a curious series of (in this case) fortunate events, I came across an intriguing recipe for salmon which included Miracle Whip and Mayonnaise, which I think I passed along in an earlier post. It was included in a great little blog I found (through those events) created by “Kansas A.”, who lives in British Columbia on a cattle ranch. She has great photos and includes a running commentary on life in the mountains. Currently she's keeping a wary eye on a forest fire. You might enjoy looking at in once in a while.

Anyway, in one entry she included this recipe which sounded a bit different. Although she has the luxury of starting with her own fresh caught salmon, I obtained my fillet by battling the local traffic, waiting in line at the seafood counter, and suffering the usual checkout drill. Then, into the test kitchen, camera in hand (so to speak) and away we go. Ingredients:



Since the salmon is baked, removing the skin is necessary and is done by: a) asking the butcher to do it; or b) much more fun – do it yourself. It’s not hard to do, just get a suitable sharp knife a cutting board, and you’re set. Start by making a little slice on the tail end, and grab the skin in your left hand (or right, depending) and keeping the knife toward the skin, slice the skin away from the meat keeping a pretty good tension on the skin. It should come off fairly cleanly.










If you don’t want to prepare the dish right then, you can wrap the fillet in plastic and set it on a bed of ice in the fridge.



Next, assemble the coating (I whisked together equal amounts),






Arrange the salmon on a foil lined baking sheet (I used a little Pam as the recipe calls for), and coat it with the “sauce”, which I did fairly thickly with a spatula, put “lots” of soy sauce and then “lots” of the dried dill weed. Voila! Ready for the oven.



It was at this point that the intrepid chef got a lesson of his own. In his rush to get the dish in the oven, he completely forgot to take a picture of the assembled product – more to learn.

At any rate, after about 25 minutes in a 350 deg (convection bake) oven, it looks like this:




With the famous "serving suggestion":



We selected the Pine Ridge ’07 Chenin Blanc/Viognier which stood up well with the salmon. Since this was my first prep of the dish, I am not sure about the amount of Mayo/Salad Dressing to use. It certainly results in a moist, well cooked fillet, but we thought maybe it was a little much. I certainly would try it again and it’s very easy to do. Prep time was probably shorter than it took to create this! After putting away the camera gear and kitchen mess, I relaxed and

DFD'd and enjoyed:

Baked Salmon

Fillet it.
Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil and spray a touch of cooking spray (Pam) on it.
Combine salad dressing (Miracle Whip) with mayonnaise (Hellman's). Or one of them if you don't have both.
Spread mixture with a spatula over fillets.
Sprinkle lots of soy sauce over.
Shake dried dill weed over both fillets.
Cook for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees.
Makes for a very moist fish with a touch of sauce. Very good :)

From Kansas A Blog, Monday July 6, 2009
http://kansasa.blogspot.com/

Weekend Wrap----

After the busy start of the early weekend, it concluded quietly. Saturday night, an intended test kitchen adventure fell victim to fatigue, and was postponed until last night (stay tuned, report in work). So instead of high cuisine, we did take out from the nearby Monterey. Despite carrying home dozens of their take out menus over the course the years, one can never be found when actually needed, so we just went up there. Kind of a quiet Sunday night, but still a few diners were there. With hundreds of choices to narrow down (hard to do in real time), we finally settled on Enchiladas Verdes and the Chimichanga Dinner. A short(ish) wait resulted in a big bag, containing two aluminum foil containers for the mains, two Styrofoam for the salads, and a big bag of chips with two sauces (what is that white stuff anyway?). The quality was as expected, no surprises either way, although it’s nice that instead of the ubiquitous ground beef, they continue to use real shredded beef which sadly I suppose one can get commercially. Don’t really picture them roasting up haunches of beef and shredding by hand. The rice wasn’t as overcooked as it usually is, and the “guacamole salad” was forgettable, wilted iceberg with dollops of guacamole and sour cream congealing everything into a tasteless lump. Chips were good as was the red stuff. White stuff (whatever it is) was nothing to speak about. The enchiladas and chimi’s were okay with a quick pop in the microwave to rejuvenate the cheese and sauces. You get what you expect (if you don't expect too much).

The rest of Sunday was sort of dissipated indoors with the return of summer like outdoors, so I saw the end of the Tour de France. The Versus live coverage fairly nicely done. Biker terms abounded – Peloton; KOM; “brought back"; “attack”; “sprint”. It’s a good thing that I knew who actually won, because later in the day the CBS network coverage (previously recorded) seemed more interested in the person who finished third than the actual winner. Thus it is always. Nobody cares about anybody but the Americans...

Then I watched the poor PGA folks struggling to get the Canadian Open in, dodging thunderstorms all weekend with the final (two?) rounds slated to conclude today. Highlight for me was an interview with Jerry Kelly wearing an “Original Six” NHL ballcap.

And so another weekend is done, the last one in July for heaven’s sake. I do have to find out where that time goes. And to start the week on a low note, I saw the first of which I suppose will be many depressing promos for that Julie/Julia movie. A preview of Meryl Streep cackling at the upper ranges of her register making a cartoon like caricature of Julia Child. Sigh......

She would have had you
DFD