The Maltese Bacon

Everyman Leek, Potato and Roasted Garlic Soup

Winter. Blah. Thoughts of moving to Miami come and go, though I still haven't been. To commemorate the beginning of the season, I read Philip Roth's "Everyman", which was a cheerful diatribe on death, illness and aching loneliness. I remember reading an interview with him shortly after the book was released saying something along the lines of although you know that your parents and grandparents will die and people prepare you for it no one tells you your friends will die when you get older and so you are unprepared. This stuck with me because somehow it seemed novel and true.

It's a good book, even though you might feel like your heart muscle is getting pounded into little cutlets whenever you read it.  But maybe you should read it if you are in the Yucatan sipping a mango shake, as opposed to an ill-lit subway smashed between a dozen people in dour, black coats. I do like the winter sometimes though. Like last night, through the third layer of clothing, a kernel of hope leaked through and I was giddy for winter. And so I went to Housing Works Book Store to leaf through old cookbooks and get cozy with humanity on their laptops. The shear number of American dishes that can incorporate a can of cream of mushroom soup is simply amazing! Which brings me to this next recipe, which is a soup, although not a mushroom one. It's nice and simple and makes an elegant appetizer to a second course of pancakes.

Leek, Potato and Roasted Garlic Soup

1 leek (slice lengthwise in half, then pull apart to rinse then chop keeping only white and pale green parts)
1 large onion chopped
2 large russet potatoes
1 chicken or vegetable bouillon cube or 2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups water
salt/pepper
1-2 cloves garlic cut in half
olive oil

Pour 2 tablespoons olive oil into small sauce pan and turn on heat at the lowest setting possible. Put garlic in there and let roast while you prepare vegetable. (If/when garlic starts to brown take off heat and pour garlic and oil into soup pot.) In a soup pot, pour in two tablespoons oil and put on medium heat. Sauté leeks and onion until they are just soft, a few minutes. Add water. Bring to boil. Add potatoes and bouillon cube. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. If garlic is still roasting on your stove, pour it into soup pot with its oil and stir. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour in a blender and puree in batches. Pour back into pot and heat through. Serve immediately.

Tomato Confit

There was a clan of tomatoes in my kitchen that were just starting to wrinkle and discolor, so I turned them into confit, thanks to David Lebovitz. Removing the wrinkly bits, I cut them in half and lay them cut side down. Gave them a healthy drizzle of olive oil (maybe 4-5 Tablespoons for 4 tomatoes), the smallest sprinklng of sugar, whole cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, bay leaves, thyme and rosemary. Roasted them in the oven for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. If you're using cherry tomatoes, it will take less time, maybe 20 minutes. Given this treatment, supermarket cherry tomatoes turn into mouth bursting caviar. Spoon tomatoes with their juice on an english muffin or use it for pasta. The picture makes it look like I used a ton of oil, but the sauce is the sum of the oil and much of the tomato juice.

Mâche and Mash

“I’m so over the whole bistro thing,” I said once and my friend Dan laughed. As silly as it sounds, I still hold by that statement (only referring to 48 contiguous states, though). I never want to eat salmon on a bed of mashed potatoes at a restaurant again.

Yes, I still end up at the occasional bistro - I live in New York after all. On the rare occasion I do end up at one, I’ll eat something I can’t easily make at home, such as the duck confit at Balthazar or an African-influenced dish at Les Enfants Terribles. Paradou used to make this amazing duck confit topped with foie gras in a fig/balsamic sauce during the winter, but I can’t bear to enter the meat-packing district anymore. I do still crave a good salmon/ mashed potato dinner – when I make it at home. It’s just so much more satisfying to make yourself, as opposed to in an loud, dimly lit room, swimming in butter, overpriced, tasting the same everywhere.

Also, at home you can make a mâche salad to go along with it. Mâche, also known as lamb’s lettuce, is a tender, pretty green which is still not widely available, despite many people working hard to make it the next arugula. From what I've gathered, although it is hardy, in the sense that it can grow in the cold, once plucked it is extremely perishable. Not an easy thing to ship for a country as large as ours. In France, it’s as prevalent as romaine lettuce, pre-rinsed and mass packaged in those plastic bags. I never eat lettuce from those plastic bags here, because Diana had told me a long time ago never to eat packaged lettuce. Years later, she was on the news in her laboratory during the whole spinach e.coli outbreak saying “I’m trying to find THE BUG.” But, somehow in France, the packaged mâche seems safer, because most things in France seem safer. Even smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day and talking about death seems healthier there.

At the West Village Citarella, the mâche comes in these mini plastic greenhouses tucked into little sand bars. I bought the ingredients and went over to John’s who lives nearby. John and I cook well together. He doesn’t mind my tinkering in his spice cabinet and using every dish he owns and I am respectful of his organizational skills and expertise with Euro stuff. He taught me how to make a perfect risotto in college and I made it so much I haven’t made it in years. For the night’s dinner, he was in charge of sautéing the corn and making the mashed potatoes and I made the salad dressing for the lettuce. I used kitchen scissors to remove the small leaves from the sand and gave them a little rinse.

John didn’t like the texture of using the Yukon Golds, he prefers Red Bliss, but I thought they were fantastic. He added a little butter and 1/3 cup olive oil that had been sautéed with minced garlic, instead of using milk for the potatoes. I threw some salt, lemon, pepper, Dijon mustard, olive oil and coriander powder on the salmon and we cooked it on the pan for 10 minutes.

Mâche Dressing
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon
1 teaspoon chopped shallot
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt/pepper