Flaming Squid

Wandering the aisles of Asian markets can be wonderfully bewildering. While most of the items look and feel somewhat familiar, the spice/sauce/paste aisles always blow me away. Just once, I'd love to open everything for a taste test.  A little sampling. A big sampling. A facial, maybe.  With dizzying varieties representing many cultures and countries (most not labeled in English), it can be a crap shoot when browsing for specific items.

The one product I've burned onto my brain and finally have no trouble recognizing  is gochujang, Korean fermented red pepper paste. Seemingly lost in a sea of fermented Asian pastes, chili sauces, fish sauces, curries, and condiments, gochujang  speaks to me. Five simple Korean letters/symbols always pull me in.

Pungent, piquant, spicy, sweet, and savory, gochujang is a Korean fermented red bean paste made from red chili powder, glutinous rice powder, pureed  fermented soybeans and salt. It's used to marinate meats, flavor stews, or as a condiment.

I used it to drench deep fried calamari.



Flaming Squid.
Not a Korean recipe.
Hell, it wasn't even a recipe.
I simply played with a few fun ingredients.

Thankfully, I stumbled across cleaned calamari. No quills. No ink. No mess. There were a few beaks. After snipping the beaks from the tentacles, I sliced the bodies into thin rings and slid the calamari into the refrigerator.

I boiled 1/2 pound of rice vermicelli noodles in heavily salted water for 6 minutes before draining them into a colander and rinsing  them under cold water for several minutes.

After blending 1 cup rice wine vinegar, 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/2 cup fresh lime juice. 4 teaspoons toasted sesame oil, 1 teaspoon minced ginger, and 1 teaspoon minced garlic, I tossed the rice noodles with the vinaigrette before adding julienned bitter radicchio, holy basil, slivered scallions, and black sesame seeds.

Fire.
I whisked 3 tablespoons of gochujang with 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons honey, and 1 teaspoon minced garlic.  I set the sauce aside and cranked the deep fryer to 360 degrees.


Typically, I would have flash fried the calamari after dusting it with flour or cornstarch.  I wanted crunch. Big crunch. A crunch that would hold up under the fiery gochujang sauce.

I made a light batter using equal parts water and rice flour. After dredging the calamari rings and tentacles through plain rice flour, I dipped them into the batter, let the excess drip off, and fried them in batches until they were golden brown.  While the calamari bits were still hot, I bathed them in the gochujang sauce before tumbling them over the rice noodles.

The calamari rings and tentacles crackled through the fiery sauce.  Protected by the batter-fried coating, the calamari meat remained juicy and sweet, squirting though the stinging heat of the lip flapping sauce. While the soft noodles balanced the crunch of the hot sticky squid, the lime-soy vinaigrette added  a slight salty acidity that helped tame the flaming heat.

Gochujang.
Sweet Heat.
Fabulous.

The Frog Prince

As kids, my brother and I spent many sultry summer nights frog gigging on the muddy banks of Difficult Creek in rural Western Kentucky.  Armed with a flash light and a Red Ryder BB gun ( our version of gigging), we'd slop through the murky waters of the creek searching for our prey. Fearless hunters. I was in charge of the flashlight.  It was my job to blind them with the light and stun them long enough for my brother to do the dirty deed.

Although we always happily  hauled our creeky catches back to the house, they mysteriously never appeared on our supper table. My grandmother spent a lifetime slaughtering farm animals, but I suspect that frogs were simply too ridiculous for her to fool with.


Fact. Cleaned frog legs are ridiculous looking, creepy,  and a bit off-putting. Like dead GI Joe Dolls stripped of their skins. Weird.  All legs. Cooked frog legs are tasty. Leggy, but delicious.

While I've prepared them a few times at work  to accompany wine tastings, I haven't fooled with frog legs at home because of the funk factor. Recently, I reluctantly snagged 2 pounds of frog legs. I intended to marinate them in buttermilk, double dredge them in seasoned flour, and deep fry them like chicken. Heavily battered and deeply disguised.

That was the plan...until I stumbled across a method that let me dance around the leggy issues. Frenching.

Game on.

Frog Leg Lollipops.
I started with four frog leg saddles. Using sharp kitchen shears, I cut the calves from the thighs and sliced the thighs in half before snipping the hip flexors  from the tops of the thighs.  After cutting away a small portion of the top thigh bone tips, I was able to pull the flesh down, expose the bone, and create fleshy frog pockets to stuff.  Yep.



I stuffed the dismantled frog pockets with leftover cold goat cheese risotto, dredged them in flour, dipped them in egg wash, rolled them through herb-flecked bread crumbs, and slid them into the refrigerator.


Fresh Corn Flan.
Jacked up corn pudding. After husking three ears of gorgeous Madison County Corn, I simmered the cobs in buttered water for 5 minutes, pulled them from the heat to cool, and sliced the kernels from the cobs before scraping out the spattering cob milk with the back of my knife.

I tossed the corn into a blender with salt, pepper, onion powder, and a cup of half and half.  After blending the corn into a smooth puree, I strained it through a fine sieve, smashed the corn juice through the sieve, discarded the solids, and poured the creamed corn essence into a mixing bowl.  I whisked the corn cream with two beaten eggs, filled four 4 ounce ramekins with the mix, and baked them in a steaming water bath for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.  When the flans were set, I pulled them from the oven, cooled them on a wire rack, and slid them into the refrigerator.

I cranked the deep fryer to 360 degrees and fried the frog pops until they were golden brown.  After draining them on paper towels, I nestled them onto pools of pureed roasted red bell peppers, garnished with slender bud-topped chives.  I inverted the jiggly chilled corn flans next to the frog pops, topping them with simple mache salads tossed in a light lemon vinaigrette.




The frog pops were approachable, interesting, and easy to eat. One bite wonders. No legginess. With slight hints of juicy meat, they tasted like gussied up cheese-filled fried risotto balls. Arancini with attitude.  Crunchy. Creamy. Cool.  The smoky sweet earthiness of the soft pepper puree balanced the tangy crunch of the goat cheese risotto..

While the frog pops were fantastic, the fresh corn flans were killer. Tempered by the slight acidity of the mache salads, the flans exuded the pure essence of summer corn. Silky. Light.  Corn pillows.

Kiss the frog and marry a prince.

Or eat him.

Purple Daze

There they were.  Gently tucked into an old cardboard box. Tiny baby eggplants, glistening and squirming under the hot morning sun. Dazed by their cheek-pinching cuteness, those petite purple aubergines charmed me into buying a few handfuls.

Bamboozled by a box of adorable baby eggplants.  Damn.

So, here's the deal. Slightly larger than my fingers and thumbs, they were  almost too tiny to cook.  What could I possible do with them? Fried fingerling eggplant parmesan? Small 4 ounce ramekins of baked  moussaka? Sauteed ratatouille for two?  I toyed with the notion of roasting them for a baba ghanoush amuse bouche.

Nope.

Agrodolce is a sweet and sour sauce in Italian cuisine.
"Agro" (sour) and "Dolce" (sweet).

Caponata is a classic Sicilian dish that embraces the balance between  the harmonious opposites of agrodolce.

Caponata. "...a spread made of eggplants, celery, and tomatoes, sliced and fried in olive oil and flavored with capers and olives. The dish is served cold."
                                              -Gastronomique


Perfect.

With a nod to Gastronmique and the many variations of caponata, I threw together a riff on the classic Sicilian dish.

It was quick, simple, and very forgiving.


Because the eggplants were small, I sliced them into rings (3 cups) before frying them in 1 cup of shimmering olive oil until they softened and were golden brown, about 10 minutes. After scooping them out with a slotted spoon, I tossed the caramelized rings into a bowl and set them aside. While the oil was still screaming hot, I sauteed a diced candy onion with 2 ribs of diced celery.


When the onions were beautifully caramelized, I deglazed the pan with 2 diced juicy  ripe garden tomatoes and let it rip until until the tomatoes thickened into a loose paste before adding 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 cup golden raisins, 1/2 cup drained capers, 1 cup chopped green olives, salt, and cracked pepper.

After simmering the sauce for 15 minutes, I pulled the mix from the heat, tossed it with the reserved fried eggplant, added 1/2 cup slivered fresh basil, and slid the caponata into the refrigerator to chill.


Nestled atop crisp ciabatta crostinis, the soft caponata dripped with tart capers, briny olives, plumped golden raisins, sweet tomatoes, and earthy eggplants. While the sour and sweet agrodolce quietly napped the velvety caponata, perky fresh pea shoots popped, adding tiny bits of freshness.


Purple daze.


Fabulous.

Raw

We're still waiting for our heirloom tomato plants to mature and ripen. Coupled with our weird backyard micro-climate that slows growth, we planted our tomatoes late. Tucked behind nine foot high old wooden fences, we water our potted tomatoes, baby them, and wait. We wait and enjoy the fruits of the farmers' market.  While most of the tomatoes at the market  are hydroponic or greenhouse grown, gorgeous vine ripened field grown heirloom varieties have started to hit the farm stands. Lately, I've been jacked up on  the big bad ugly tomatoes.  The seconds. The culls. The tomatoes most people don't want because they're downright ugly.  This time of year, people crave the pretty ones. Slicing tomatoes. Sandwich tomatoes. Salad tomatoes.  Not me. I crave the ones that are too slutty to slice or  pamper.


Oh sure, I still buy the cute little Yellow Pear, Black Krim, and Black Cherokee Plum tomatoes.  However, the snarled, gnarly, blemished, cracked, scarred, and overripe ugly tomatoes always pull me into their gorgeous mangled ugliness like juicy magnets.





Our kitchen windowsill has been lined with uglies for a few weeks, standing like dutiful soldiers reflecting the sun and teetering on the verge of spontaneous combustion. I needed to use them. Sliced? No way. Cooked? Nope.



Raw Tomato Sauce.


I pulled the largest Brandywine tomato from the windowsill and plopped it into a large bowl, causing it  to splat into a tomato heap. The tomato practically peeled itself. The skin simply slid off, exposing deep red tomato flesh. After snipping away the blemishes and hard green stuff, I minced the flesh and squeezed it  between my fingers until I had a bowl of pulp. Crazy. After seasoning the raw sauce with salt, pepper, and minced garlic, I drizzled it with very good extra virgin olive oil before letting it macerate at room temperature to blend the flavors.

Pasta.
Any pasta would have worked beautifully.  With such few simple ingredients, I wanted a delicate pasta.  A simple pasta.  Homemade pasta.

After sifting 1 1/2 cups flour into a large mixing bowl, I added 2 large organic egg yolks, 1 large organic whole egg, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 tablespoons ice water, and salt. Working from the outer edges, I slowly pulled the flour into the eggs, gently working together until they formed a smooth pliable dough.  After kneading the dough for 10 minutes ( adding water or flour for the right consistency), I gathered the dough into a ball, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and let it rest for an hour.

Working with a fourth of the dough at a time, I passed the dough through the lowest setting on the pasta roller several times, folding  and flouring it before each pass until it was smooth.When I felt the dough was ready to roll,  I hand-cranked it through the rollers, increasing the setting with each pass until I had long  thin pliable pasta sheets. After cutting the sheets into linguini ribbons, I tumbled them onto a floured towel to dry.

That was it. Tomato juice and flour dust. Magical.


I boiled the fresh pasta in heavily salted water for 3 minutes, scooped it out, tossed it with the raw tomato sauce, and twirled it into large pasta bowls, finishing with fresh basil, olive oil, and cracked black pepper.


While the warm pasta absorbed a bit of the tomato juices, the sauce was wonderfully loose.


Slurpy. Fresh. Clean. Raw.
Drinkable.

Waxed

Yellow wax beans. Really? Until recently,  I'd only seen or eaten them mixed into those ubiquitous three bean salads that pop up at church or family potlucks. Canned cut yellow wax beans, canned cut green beans, and canned kidney beans tossed in a sugary sweet and sour dressing. I have nothing against three bean salads.  Trust me, I've eaten my share of them. I can still feel and hear the  uniformly cut bean batons squeak between my teeth.

I discovered fresh yellow wax beans at the farmers' market last weekend. I wasn't looking for them. Hardly. Hell, I didn't even know what  fresh yellow wax beans looked like. Were they  beans or  batons?  While rifling through stacked clusters of baby beets from Cleary Hill Farm,  I spotted a small basket of pale yellow beans. They were beautiful, delicate, and lovely.  "What are these?", I asked. "Yellow wax beans.", she said. Well, well, well. So, that's what they're supposed to look like. Go figure. I bagged a few handfuls.


Hungover Sunday Supper.

Ok, so Michael and I may have had a few too many mimosas  and greyhounds during our post church Sunday brunch. Why not?  They were fabulous, giddily twirling us both into  languid Sunday afternoon naps.

Eventually,  I threw together a very simple Sunday supper.

I tossed leftover jasmine rice with leftover diced caper-flecked pan seared chicken piccata.  After splashing the mixture with extra virgin olive oil, I spooned it into chilled radicchio cups, and set them aside.  I cranked a cast iron skillet over a high flame, drizzled it olive oil, and briefly sauteed the yellow wax beans with parsley, salt, and pepper until they were crisp tender, about 5 minutes.  I pulled the beans from the heat and added yellow pear tomatoes before tossing them in a light dijon vinaigrette (2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 1/2 tablespoon minced shallot, 1/2 tablespoone dijon mustard, 1/3 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper).

I nestled the filled radicchio cups onto bibb lettuce leaves before tumbling the wax beans to the side with caperberries, split kalamata olives, slivered red bell pepper, and pear tomatoes.  Parsley, Red Aleu sea salt, and generous amounts of coarsely ground Tellicherry black peppercorns finished them off.

The velvety thin-skinned yellow beans had a softer bite than traditional green beans, gently snapping through the bright vinaigrette.  While the olives and caperberries provided a mildly tart bitterness, the floral heat from the cracked peppercorns added aromatic biting crunch.





Yellow wax beans.
Light. Clean. Refreshing.
Who knew?

Cukes

I've been hoarding cucumbers. I'm not sure why, really. There are plenty of them at every farm stand at the farmers' market. They're not going anywhere. They're everywhere.  I usually grow them on a tall trellis on the corner of our garage, but never got around to it this year. The notion of not having them growing in our back yard may have been the spark that ignited the flame to hoard. I shop at the market three times a week, bringing home a basket of cucumbers with every visit. Do the math. They piled up.  It's not even pickling season.  You'd think I'd planned  to load my car with cucumbers, park on the side of a country road, and sell them from the trunk of my PT Cruiser.

A couple of weeks ago, Michael asked me why I hadn't purchased any cucumbers while we were browsing  the farmers' market. He had no idea that my bag was filled with them. They were safely tucked away beneath  fennel bulbs, radishes, and green onions. Crazy. Caught.

Eventually, we started eating them. Bright. Crunchy. Fresh. The juicy ones were fantastic thinly sliced and tossed into salads.

I sliced the largest cucumbers and tossed them with sliced candy onions before marinating  them with sugar, salt, and vinegar. Old school. Country style.  Before she started her manic pickling marathons, my grandmother always had a bowl of macerated cucumbers lingering in her refrigerator throughout the summer months. I adored their limpy crispness. They were crunchy, soft. tart, and sweet. We ate them with every meal. Check.

I diced the medium sized Kirby cucumbers and mixed them with pureed heirloom Black Brandywine tomatoes, minced onions, salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon juice for refreshing bowls of chilled cucumber soup (not gazpacho).  Check.

After all of my cucumber merry making, I still had a handful of leftover pesky baby cucumbers.  The cute ones.  The adorable little ones. Without seeds or juicy flesh, they were almost tasteless and dry. I did what any sane person would do,  I grilled them and pickled them. Yep. Check......and double check.

Maybe I was bored.  Who cared?
I quartered eight tiny cucumbers, two small purple candy onions, and tossed them with olive oil before tumbling them onto a screaming hot grill pan for 3 to 4 minutes. When they were slightly marked by the grill, I pulled them from the heat to cool.

After whisking together 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup water, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon sugar,  1 teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon mustard seeds, 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, and sprigs of fresh dill,  I filled three small mason jars with the grilled cucumbers and onions before covering them with the pickling juice. I sealed the jars and slid them into the refrigerator to chill. Check Mate.


Because they were so small and dense, the pickles remained incredibly crisp. With hints of smokiness,  dill, mustard seeds, and vinegar, they tasted like jacked-up quick pickled gherkins.


Give me a hot dog.
Stat.

Beach Party

Years ago, Michael and I spent our summers on the Eastern Shores of Virginia. While Chincoteague  was our barrier island home, nearby Assateague Island National Seashore was our oceanfront  playground. The windswept dunes on Assateague gave way to vast sandy beaches that extended for miles and miles. It was beautiful.  We spent our days swimming, sunning, hiking, flying kites, and chasing ghost crabs. Surrounded by vacationing families parked on blankets tucked under frilly  umbrellas, we always felt secluded and alone.

Dusk on Assateague emptied the beaches, chasing families to their cars for dinner dates, miniature golf, or pony rides. Occasionally, we joined the frantic shuffle. There were days that we  lingered to watch the burning sun dip behind the dunes, casting shadows across the beach. Wading ankle deep through the quiet wash of a lowering tide, we held hands in public for the first time during one of those sunsets. Shielded by watery shadows, we held onto each other and to that innocent stolen moment.

It didn't matter how long we stayed on the beach. Every day ended with a short drive across the causeway to get back  to our house in Chincoteague.  After passing crabbers, clam rakers, and wild ponies, we'd stop by roadside farmstands and fish markets to buy fresh tomatoes, corn on the cob, lettuces, shrimp, clams, oysters, and Maryland blue crabs. Bountiful hauls. Once nestled into our bay-front cabin, we filled it with the joyous angst of Annie Lennox while we cooked, danced, drank, and ate with wild abandon. Paradise.

Fast forward.

Without an ocean or beach within a few hundred miles of us, Michael and I have happily managed to turn a small patch of grass at a raucous nearby public pool into our own little urban beach.  Last Saturday, we spent most of the afternoon slapping  through the icy waters of our urban oasis. When enough was enough, we piled our junk into the car and headed to the Lexington Seafood Market. It felt wonderfully familiar.

I'd called a few days earlier to ask about the availabilty of live soft shell Maryland blue crabs. They had plenty of them.  So, here's the deal. I've never embraced the notion of cleaning soft shell crabs. Ever. Period.  Cleaning  is a kind word that simply means cutting off their faces and eyes while they're still alive. Really? Nope. I'd heard that the Lexington Seafood Market cleaned soft shell crabs (upon request) at no additional emotional cost. Sold.

When we arrived at the market, the cooler was filled with rosy pink salmon, gorgeous tuna, clams, mussels, and oysters. I wanted it all.

We left with a basket of soft shell crabs, cleaned.

It felt like a beach day.

Sun.
Water.
Maryland blue crabs.

Cue the music.

I marinated the crabs in buttermilk, Old Bay, and Tabasco for an hour before dredging them through 1/2 cup cornmeal mixed with 1/2 cup self rising flour.  After cranking the deep fryer to 350 degrees, I carefully dropped the crabs one by one into the hot oil. After 3 to 4 minutes, they were beautifully browned and crisp. I pulled them from the oil, drained them on paper towels, seasoned them with Old Bay, and slid them into a warm oven.

After lining a large platter with newspaper, I threw together the rest of the beach feast.

I lieu of fresh out-of-season corn, I quartered two florets of market cauliflower and blanched them for 8 minutes until they were fork tender. While the fryer was still hot, I dredged half the cauliflower the cornmeal/flour mix and fried it until it crisp and golden brown. Yep. I tossed the remaining blanched cauliflower with chive pesto and spooned it onto the platter before tumbling quartered grape tomatoes, halved yellow pear tomatoes, and roasted baby beets to the side.

I covered the newspaper-lined platter with the fried soft shell crabs, fried cauliflower florets, and sliced lemons. Small ramekins of caper dill aioli and shaved horeseradish cocktail sauce served as dippers. We ate the fry fest directly from the platter. No forks. Beach food.

The fried crabs were wonderfully messy,  squirting their sweet juices  down our chins. Intoxicating. While the cauliflower two-way added earthy crunch and herbaceous freshness, the ripe tomatoes washed over everything like edible Wet-Naps. Just before our beach party ended,  I lifted the final crab from the platter, ripped it in half, and sucked out the meat.  It was the sweetest bite of crab I had ever tasted. Ever.

 Chincoteague.  Assateague. The sand. Our house. Annie Lennox.

We were back at the beach, flying kites high into the sky
hoping to catch the clouds.