Charlene's Kitchen in Philadelphia: Herb-and-Olive Frittata

Mark Bittman is one of my food heroes. I love his low-pressure approach to cooking and his simple recipes. His old Minimalist videos are inspiring and often humorous. I’ve also been enjoying his more recent columns focusing on food policy and related health, environmental, and social issues. His blog, On Food, is located here: http://bittman.blogs.nytimes.com.

In one of his more recent “Eat” pieces in The New York Times Magazine, Bittman gives special treatment to herbs! As a fellow herb-lover and an herb gardener, these recipes really whet my appetite. Here’s the recipe for one that I made this week. It includes no less than three cups (!) of herbs and it will leave a bright, refreshing taste in your mouth. If you don’t already have an herb garden, let this be inspiration for starting one next year...



Herb-and-Olive Frittata
by Mark Bittman
from The New York Times Magazine, Sunday, August 14, 2011, page 43.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/magazine/recipe-herb-and-olive-frittata.html?ref=magazine

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 cup chopped black olives, preferably oil-cured
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary or thyme
8 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
Salt and black pepper.

1. Put the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 3 to 5 minutes.

2. Add the olives and herbs and cook, stirring occasionally, until they soften and become dry, 2 to 3 minutes. Meanwhile, beat together the eggs, milk, flour and some salt and pepper.

3. Turn heat to low and pour the egg mixture into the skillet, using a spoon if necessary to evenly distribute the herbs and olives. Cook, undisturbed, until the eggs are just set, 5 to 10 minutes. (You can set the top further by putting the pan in an oven at 350 for a few minutes or by running it under the broiler for a minute or two.)

Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

Note: It took closer to 10-14 minutes for my eggs to set on the stovetop, then I did stick the pan in the oven for an additional 4 minutes at 350 degrees. They did not seem overcooked to me.

Charlene's Kitchen in Philadelphia: Herb-and-Olive Frittata

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Cheap but delicious tilapia

Yeah. I got laid off on June 13.

Not much to say about that, except I understand industry-wise why it happened, it totally sucked, and there might be a nice silver lining in that I was planning to get a freelancing career started anyway so this could be the kick in the pants I need to do it sooner rather than later.

Another possible silver lining? I've been thinking about learning how to bake bread for several years now, and even got an excellent cookbook/explanatory book about it a few years ago for Christmas that I haven't used as much as I'd hoped. So with time on my hands, a good instruction manual, a lot of fear and a vanishingly small amount of pastry self-confidence, I may move forward with this project soon. Never fear, I'll keep you posted if I do.

Today, though, I cooked what may be the cheapest fully realized dinner of my life (assuming meals of ramen and reheated chicken wings aren't a fully realized dinner, that is).
It started when I went to Atkinsons' in Bellevue, which has quite the section devoted to those whose appetites are of the Hispanic persuasion. Whole (cleaned, scaled) tilapia were on sale. I bought two...for $2.42. Yep, you read that right; I could have bought four and still spent less than a Subway sandwich. How could I resist that, especially after having seen some excellent depictions of the cooking of whole fish on Top Chef and other such shows?

I pulled one out of the freezer two days ago, and have been researching recipes ever since -- although I have a small amount of whole-fish experience that primarily consists of catching, gutting and grilling little lake trout, these tilapia were slightly frightening. They did have clear eyeballs though, which I've heard is a good indication that the fish is fresh (or freshly frozen). And it didn't smell "fishy" even two days after defrosting (though I did cut the fish open farther than the way it came to me, because the open space wasn't big enough to hold much of the filling I had chosen for this first experiment -- I recommend a sharp fillet knife for this).

So this is the recipe I decided to start with. Because if I'm ever in a kitchen without butter, garlic and onions, shoot me. And I'm growing flatleaf parsley out back (it survived the frost that killed my tomatoes and peppers). I made a few substitutions, like the "tuscan-style" herbed butter+olive oil mixture I bought accidentally a few weeks ago, and oh, twice or three times the garlic. I was suspicious the garlic would be too much when I smelled it cooking, but actually the raw Vidalia onions I used were more prominent in the final product's flavor profile than the garlic. And can you really ever have too much garlic?
I will say that, for aesthetics, the broiling is pretty important. Though the fish was fully cooked when it came out of the 400-degree oven, it still looked like it did when it went in -- broiling gave it the lovely browned bubbliness you expect from some properly cooked fish.

As a side, I cooked some jasmine rice in our rice cooker, and some black rice on the stove, with a bit of S&P and butter. Topped the cooked fish with a little fresh chopped cilantro and a final light sprinkling of salt, and...

...it was *really* good. I like tilapia's ability to take on the flavor of whatever you cook it with -- and I'm already plotting what I'll do with the other fish waiting in the freezer -- but seriously? Onion, garlic, butter, lemon and parsley on fish? How could that NOT be good? You do have to watch out for the bones, including both ribs and backbone, but they're pretty big so unless you eat super-fast or unregarding for unsavory bits they shouldn't be a problem.

I think there are more $1.21 whole tilapia in my future.

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Cheap but delicious tilapia

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Seared Lime Swordfish with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Garlic Bread

So this is one of the best things I've made in a long time (canning aside, since I can't assess that until it's lived in its glass for a while).

The husband brought home swordfish tonight, two beautiful triangular pieces of fish that he said looked excellent in the store.
I pondered...I thought...I mused.

This is what I came up with:

With half a loaf of ciabatta bread that was getting a little old, I made garlic bread. Approximately equal parts butter and olive oil, with Johnny's Garlic Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste, drizzled onto halved-lengthwise bread in a 300-degree oven wrapped in foil. It was baked while everything else was cooking (I boosted that to 400 about 10 minutes before service, but I should have done it sooner to get more crispiness).

In a small saucepan, I sauteed pressed garlic in a few teaspoons so each of olive oil and lime juice until the garlic was fragrant and just beginning to color, then added a third cup of pureed heirloom tomatoes, and a tablespoon or so of whipping cream. I let that simmer while I prepared the fish, then about halfway through cooking I added another about two cups of the tomatoes, pureed with two stalks of thyme (the leaves stripped from the stalks, stalks discarded).

In the meantime, I sniffed my spice cabinet. I sniffed all manner of spices, and rejected most of them. What I added to a flattened bowl was ground red pepper, ground cinnamon, ground smoked paprika, fresh ground rose pepper, and fresh ground Hawaiian black salt. I coated both sides of the swordfish in that.

I had heated a tablespoon or two of Persian Lime olive oil that we got as a wedding gift (thank you, Gayle and Bob! this was a wonderful first use of it), on medium-high heat in a nonstick fry pan. A very small red onion, not quite a scallion, was sliced thinly and sauteed with a little salt and pepper in the lime olive oil until it was nearly crispy, then the onion bits were removed.

The coated swordfish went in the pan with the lime olive oil, and I seared it, flipping the fish three times so each side got two chances in the pan. That wasn't so much intentional as necessary because I wasn't paying attention (the Giant Block of Cheese episode of The West Wing was on, and the Peters projection map distracted me).

To build the plate, I added pieces of garlic bread and the fish, then topped the fish with the tomato sauce, the crispy-ish onions and a sprinkling of freshly chopped Italian parsley.

Honestly, I'm not much for traditional garnishes. No sprigs of parsley looking pretty next to fish for me.
But I follow my instincts, and the plants on my porch told my instincts to go for the parsley. They were right. The parsley was a beautifully fresh flavor on top of the fresh tomatoes, and mixed with the lime juice in the tomato sauce and the lime oil with the fish and onions was really, if I say so myself, perfect.

Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Seared Lime Swordfish with Fresh Tomato Sauce and Garlic Bread

Charlene's Kitchen in Philadelphia: Chicken with Garlic and Parsley

It's no secret that I have a culinary crush on Jacques Pépin. I first saw Jacques on the PBS series "Fast Food My Way" (2004) and since then his recipes, techniques, and philosophy of cooking have influenced my meal times. He emphasizes that preparing food, especially for guests, doesn't have to be stressful or time consuming, and that sharing meals should be enjoyable.

His recipes from the show and companion cookbook use mostly basic ingredients and have a reasonable number of steps. He takes everyday ingredients and turns them into a delicious, easy meal. For example, chicken stock, bread, Gruyère cheese, and freshly ground pepper can be made into a satisfying soup in five minutes. He also presents traditional and seemingly complicated dishes, like bouillabaisse, as meals that can be prepared simply by home cooks.

I love how simple and tasty Jacques' recipes are. I've come to rely on Fast Food My Way for many of my weeknight dishes and I highly recommend the cookbook. Below is one of my favorite recipes for chicken, garlic, and parsley that I make regularly. It's so simple I'm almost embarrassed to be posting it with A Kitchen In Brooklyn's other recipes!

As Jacques would say in his adorable French accent, with a smile on his face and a glass of wine in his hand, "Happy Cooking!"

Chicken Breasts with Garlic and Parsley
serves 4

From Fast Food My Way by Jacques Pépin
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004)


Helpful tips from Jacques: use Wondra flour preferably, and toss the chicken in the flour just before adding to pan (otherwise it will get soggy)

3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (each about 7 oz.) cut into 1- to 1 1/2-in. cubes
2 Tbs. Wondra flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. chopped garlic
3 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 lemon, quartered

• Combine flour, salt, and pepper in bowl.
• Dry chicken cubes and toss in flour.
• Add to very hot, but not smoking, 12-in skillet over high heat. Cook in one layer, turning occasionally, for about 3 1/2 minutes.
• Meanwhile, combine garlic and parsley in a small bowl.
• Add the butter and garlic and parsley mixture to pan and sauté for one more minute, shaking the skillet to evenly coat the chicken.

Serve with lemon wedges.

Charlene's Kitchen in Philadelphia: Chicken with Garlic and Parsley