Cowgirlchef

New Sponsor: National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame

Cowgirl Chef — Wed, 08 May 2013 12:46:22 +0000

An exciting announcement, y’all – the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, which hosted a sell-out luncheon for my book tour last fall — is now an official Cowgirl Chef sponsor (see cool ad on the right).

This cowgirl couldn’t be more thrilled.

So check back here often for upcoming events that we’ll be doing together and exhibitions you shouldn’t miss.

Like this one, “Tough By Nature: Portraits of Cowgirls and Ranch Women of the American West,” a collection of portraits by Eugene, Oregon artist Lynda Lanker, which opens tomorrow, May 9, and runs through September 9.

This show represents 19 years of Lanker traveling to cattle ranches and rodeos across the American West and getting to know the women one-on-one. “I had no idea what their life was like,” Lanker says. “It’s about birth, water, life and death, about the constant care of the animals and the land. With livestock, crops, and property to tend, the small family rancher can’t just take a week off and go on vacation. I undertook this project because the character of these women is right there on the surface, more so than somebody who’s got layers and layers of urban culture. Their honesty was so genuine. Nothing to chip away. Just right there ready for me to express on paper or canvas or whatever.”

Cowgirls have often been portrayed as iconic (or even clichéd) characters, and this is exactly what Lanker tried to avoid. The 65 paintings and works on paper are all different, each one using the media Lanker felt like would best express each cowgirl’s true nature. Some are charcoal. Others are oil and pastel. Acrylic. Egg tempura. Or plate and stone lithography or drypoint engraving. All vastly different techniques to depict each woman – and her spirit – most accurately.

“I didn’t go out there to prove that their lives were so different from the lives of the women I knew or the cowboys we thought we knew,” says Lanker. “I started to discover who they were. There were at least as many of the female cowhands and ranchers who were doing the same work as the men, but they had mainly been portrayed as rodeo queens in tight satin shirts with lots of sequins and fancy boots. I wanted to go deeper and show the true women instead of the stereotype.”

Execution took some trial and error, Lanker admits. She started out using oil pastel over watercolor acrylic, but found that it didn’t always work. “With Mary Caldwell’s portrait, I tried watercolor oil pastel mixed media, and charcoal. But it just wasn’t her. I couldn’t evoke who she was. I wanted to see her in front of me and feel the way I felt when I was with her and looking at her incredible face. I had never tried egg tempura, but I just had a feeling, a hunch, that it might be the thing. So I made my first egg tempura, and it was Mary, right in front of me. Using different media helps me stay fresh.”

As Lanker’s techniques changed and evolved over the process, so, too, was she. “In the end, though, this is all about the women, the cowgirls. For this ranch life, long romanticized, is harsh and makes one tough by nature. What these women and their families are doing is admirable. They have made an indelible imprint on the American landscape. I want to honor them and give them their rightful place in the history of the American West.”

With this show, she does. The exhibition is free with museum admission. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and children. Check it out.

You might also want to buy the coffee table book that accompanies the exhibition, available in the gift shop. The book tells all of the stories behind the artwork. Novelist Larry McMurtry wrote the forward. Cowgirl Hall of Fame honoree Justice Sandra Day O’Connor penned the introduction.

The exhibition was organized by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon in Eugene, where it premiered in the fall of 2012. It comes to the Cowgirl museum from the Oregon Historical Society in Portland. Landau Traveling Exhibitions of Los Angeles is coordinating the tour.

Sponsors of the exhibition are Fifth Avenue Foundation; Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities; National Barrel Horse Association; National Cutting Horse Association; and Reata restaurant.

National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, 1720 Gendy Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76107, 817/336-4475, cowgirl.net

Photos courtesy of National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, Lynda Lanker, and Landau Traveling Exhibitions.

Canlis Salad

Cowgirl Chef — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 12:02:27 +0000

I wish I’d invented this salad.

*sigh*

I thought I’d tried just about every combination of some sort of lettuce + some sort of vinaigrette imaginable. Then I read about this salad, served for 60-plus years at the Canlis Restuarant, an old school steakhouse in Seattle, in The New York Times a couple of months ago, and I was intrigued.

I loved that it wasn’t something new. That it called for lots of fresh oregano and mint and Romano, a cheese I adore but often push aside in favor of its fancier (and pricier) formaggi, Parmigiano Reggiano. And perhaps the most simple of all vinaigrettes – lemon juice, olive oil, and a coddled egg to hold it together. Unlike a Caesar or a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, two go-to salads for meaty meals, this salad’s light, lemony notes are a perfect foil to whatever else you’ve decided to put on the plate.

I’ve already made it twice.

It is great with a perfectly seared Angus tenderloin steak (which I’ve now also had twice). It would be lovely on its own.

I’ve decided this is going to be my summer of 2013 salad, the perfect accompaniment to sunsets against the Jemez mountains. More on that later.

Canlis Salad

Makes 4 servings

Adapted from a recipe from Canlis restaurant in Seattle in The New York Times

I swapped out mesclun for Romaine lettuce, which the original recipe calls for, and found that I prefer seeing the different colors and textures on the plate. I also omitted the croutons and reduced the amount of Romano by two-thirds, creating a lighter version than the original.

4 slices of thick-cut bacon
5 ounces of mesclun
a small handful of fresh mint leaves, roughly torn
a small handful of oregano, leaves removed
about 1 dozen cherry tomatoes, halved
4 green onions, thinly sliced
¼ cup of grated Romano, plus a bit more for serving
juice of 1 lemon
⅓ cup of olive oil
1 egg
sea salt and pepper

1. Fry your bacon tip it’s crispy and lay out the strips on a paper towel to drain. When cool, crumble the bacon.

2. Put the mesclun, mint, oregano, cherry tomatoes, green onions, and Romano in a large bowl. Add the bacon to this, too.

3. Whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil and pop a coffee mug filled with water into the microwave for 1 to 2 minutes. Put your egg into a deep bowl or cup. When the water’s hot, pour it over your egg and set the timer for 60 seconds. This will quickly coddle your egg. Now simply crack the egg into the lemon juice and olive oil and whisk again. Add a pinch of sea salt and pepper and taste. Pour as much dressing as needed over the salad and toss. Serve right away with a bit more grated Romano on top. Yummy.

Chicken and Black Bean Taco Salad

Cowgirl Chef — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:59:56 +0000

Shredded Tex-Mexy chicken, black beans, crispy tortilla strips and a cool, green Ranchlike dressing made with good-for-you Greek yogurt…what, I ask you, is not to like here?

I love this salad.

It satisfies on so many levels. Crunchy. Spicy. Tex-Mexy. Healthy. And it’s super-fast to make with leftover or rotisserie chicken.

Since the rotisserie chicken man is oh, a 5-minute walk away, I usually just go there around 4 in the afternoon, when he’s taking the just-roasted and browned chickens off of the giant skewers, and walk home with the warm chicken in the white sack, the juices gathering at the bottom. I like to shred the chicken right away, while it’s still warm, and I can also test a bite or two to make sure it’s okay.

I highly recommend doing this.

Now, the cool green non-Ranch but Ranchlike dressing. It is simply yogurt, with a few things whisked in, and it’s an adaptation of a recipe that I found in my Ottolenghi cookbook. It’s really not far off from raita, when you think about it, and I made something similar years ago. But this is even simpler, and it’s the perfect match for this salad.

I just might have to make this again tonight. Just writing about it makes me hungry.

Chicken and Black Bean Taco Salad

Makes 2 grande salads

6 corn tortillas
about 4 tablespoons of canola oil (divided)
about ½ teaspoon of fleur de sel
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 cups of shredded rotisserie chicken
½ teaspoon of cumin
½ teaspoon of chili powder
2 cups of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 head of lettuce, torn into smallish pieces
1 avocado, chopped
Lime Cilantro Yogurt Dressing, recipe follows

1. Preheat your oven to 450°F/230°C.

2. Cut the tortilla strips into 1/4-inch wide strips, toss them in a bowl with the canola oil and fleur de sel and toss with your hands. Lay the strips out on a cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until crispy.

3. Put the other 2 tablespoons of canola oil along with the garlic in a large skillet and turn the heat to medium. Cook just until you can start to smell the garlic, then add the chicken, cumin, chili powder and a pinch of salt. Let this cook and warm through.

4. At the same time, warm up your black beans.

5. To serve, pile the lettuce on two dinner plates and divide the black beans and chicken between the two. Add the avocado chunks and tortilla strips and pass the Lime-Cilantro Yogurt Dressing — no guilt!

Lime Yogurt Cilantro Dressing

You can do all sorts of things with this little green number. Besides a salad dressing, it’s also great drizzled over veggie galettes, steamed broccoli, as a dip for oven fries, you name it.

Makes 11 ounces/300 grams

11 ounces/300 grams of Greek or plain yogurt
a big handful of fresh cilantro
1 clove of garlic
juice of 1 lime (about a teaspoon)
1 tablespoon of olive oil
a pinch of sea salt

Put all of the ingredients in your food processor and whizz till combined. Taste and adjust for seasonings. Best when it hangs out in the fridge for a half-hour before serving.

Parmesan Oven Fries

Cowgirl Chef — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 05:57:02 +0000

In the last year, I had these at a restaurant in the U.S. — probably with a burger, which I seem to eat all the time when I’m in Texas — and I thought at the time that I needed to modify the idea for an oven-baked tater, thereby making it healthy(ish), rather than a not-so-good-for-you and much maligned fried food.

Plus oven fries are easier and less messy than fries, which is the real reason why I do them this way. Laziness, people! In my world, this is the mother of invention.

I figured, how hard could it be to make these at home?

Um, not.

But are they delicious and crisp as all proper fried fries should be? Well, let me just say that between X and me, we ate ALL of these in one sitting (and yes, you’ll see that the recipe makes enough for four).

Parmesan Oven Fries

Makes enough for 4 people

2 pounds/1 kilo of potatoes, cut into French fry shapes
about 2 tablespoons of olive oil
sea salt and pepper
¼ cup/25 grams of freshly grated Parmesan
about 2 tablespoons of fresh Italian parsley, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F/230°C and line a largeish cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Put the potatoes on the large cookie sheet, drizzle with the olive oil, and toss with your hands, making sure to evenly spread out the potatoes. Sprinkle with some sea salt and pepper and slide into the oven and bake for about 45 minutes, making sure to check on them frequently and toss them to the other side so they brown evenly.

3. When your fries are cooked, take them out of the oven, generously sprinkle Parmesan and parsley all over them and serve right away while they’re still hot. (If you want to be fancy, you can stand them up like soldiers in some cute vintage flea market metal cups, lined with little parchment squares, like I did here.)

Cowgirl Chef Tours: Brocantes, Bistros and Baguettes

Cowgirl Chef — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 05:22:01 +0000

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I have a little problem when it comes to old junk. If there’s a brocante (that’s Frenchy for flea market) in the area, I’ll zoom in like a heat-seeking missile and with my Trader Joe’s bag on my shoulder (stuffed with pre-cut pieces bubble wrap), I’ll canvass each and every booth…in search of that day’s Great Treasure.

Since I’ve lived in Paris – more than six years now–I’ve made a habit of hitting the brocantes large and small as often as I can. The ones in the middle of Paris set up on neighborhood sidewalks and in streets, the funky small town vide-greniers (garage sales) underneath bridges, and the bigger fleas, too, wherever they happen to be.

Some might call this an addiction. But if it is, I’m not quitting anytime soon.

To me, there’s a kind of timeless magic in old things.

Salad served in a 200-year old bowl from Burgundy, eaten with an oversized French vintage fork and knife makes dining more soulful, more connected to the past. It forces us to slow down….ponder…and savour the moment, and what we’re eating right then, as well as wonder what was served in that bowl before…and to whom.

I love old junk as much as I love eating and cooking, and to me, these things all play off of each other. A great meal at a new bistro may inspire a new recipe, sure, but I also might discover a way to set the table that I never thought of before. I’ve found pressed tin tart pans that have baked Cowgirl interpretations of traditional French quiches, old copper stockpots rescued from restaurants that have braised many legs of lamb, and more café au lait bowls (which I use for soups, mostly) than a person should ever possess.

Starting this fall, I’m combining my loves of shopping for old junk, eating, and cooking….and offering up a series of tours for flea-market obsessed, food-loving cowgirls like me.

I’m calling the tours Brocantes, Bistros and Baguettes.

Who’s with me?

To find out more, just click on the Tours button at the top of this page, or click here.

Chocolate Chip and Walnut Blondies

Cowgirl Chef — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 03:51:39 +0000

Don’t ask me what took so long for me to jump on the Blondie bandwagon. But here I am, boots on, and not about to get off anytime soon.

I don’t know where I saw something about Blondies recently that caught my attention. Pinterest, probably. I’ve been spending way too much time there lately, but isn’t it fun? It feels like flipping through a magazine, something I never do anymore. So I went in search of a Blondie recipe and found Mark Bittman’s on Smitten Kitchen website, and as y’all know, a Mark Bittman recipe is pretty much foolproof, so my search began and ended right then and there.

And they were, as I expected them to be, perfect. Like your favorite chocolate chip cookie, but super-gooey and all brownie-like. And like your favorite brownie recipe, these take about 5 minutes to put together and throw in the oven.

Also brownie–esque in that they’re meant to be ever-so-slightly undercooked. Moist and warm, a few of these babies would pair up quite nicely with a scoop or two of vanilla bean ice cream, now wouldn’t they?

Chocolate Chip and Walnut Blondies

Makes 36 bite-size blondies

Inspired by a Mark Bittman recipe found on the Smitten Kitchen website.

Know that the original recipe is the blondie itself, sans chocolate or nuts. I added the chocolate chips and toasted walnuts and amped up the salt (adding 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt to the recipe and a dusting of fleur de sel on top before I baked them). Reason I did this was when I tasted the batter it didn’t move me. It seemed a little flat. I figured the added punch of salt, just a little, would make everything taste more like it should — which it did.

Note, too, that I used cassonade sugar instead of brown sugar, which the recipe called for. You may use whatever’s easiest to get your hands on.

½ teaspoon of sea salt
1 cup/125 grams of flour
1 stick/125 grams of butter, melted
1 cup/145 grams of cassonade (known as demerara sugar in the U.S.) or brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 cup/240 grams of chocolate chips
1 cup/125 grams of walnuts, toasted then roughly chopped
fleur de sel

1. Line an 8 x 8 pan with parchment or foil and preheat the oven to 350°/180 °C.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the sea salt and flour. Set this aside.

3. Put the melted butter and cassonade or brown sugar in your mixer and combine. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until the color changes to light yellow. Give this a few minutes on high.

4. Add the flour-sea salt and mix gently. Ditto with the chocolate chips and walnuts. Pour into the pan and slide into the oven. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until the edges brown. Be sure not to overcook this and err on the side of under rather than overcooked. Gooey is gooooood. Serve right away.

Caramelized Leek and Potato Tart

Cowgirl Chef — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:05:00 +0000

As crazy as it may sound to justify my flea market obsession as inspiration, I give you this, a very leek-y, cheesy, and potato-y tart that I made the day after I found this super-cute ceramic tart pan at Porte de Vanves one Saturday for the ridiculous price of 2 euros. That’s right. Two, as in less than what I usually pay for a cup of coffee, euros.

My other tart pans are practical and nonstick and have these great removable bottoms, which this one clearly does not. Nevermind you, removable bottoms. I’d rather have the soul and history of this one, as well as the deeper sides, which none of my more sensible tart pans have.

Nonsense and sensibility, I say!

I will continue to spend my weekends and precious few euros with the vendors at Vanves flea, who back up their goodies-stuffed vans to the sidewalk, snow, rain, or on the rare occasion, shine.

Caramelized Leek and Potato Tart

Makes one 9-inch by 1 1/2-inch (23 cm by 3.8 cm tart)

2 ¼ cups/300 grams of whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon of sea salt
1 stick/125 grams of butter
1 egg yolk
½ cup/120 ml of ice water
3 large or 5 small leeks, sliced (white parts only)
olive oil
sea salt and pepper
1 pound/500 grams of red-skinned potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
3 eggs
1 cup/200 ml of milk
a pinch of nutmeg
1 cup/115 grams of grated Comté (Gruyère, Emmental or Swiss will work, too)

1. Preheat your oven to 400°F/200°C and line a 9-inch by 1 1/2-inch (23 cm by 3.8 cm)tart pan with parchment paper.

2. Make the whole wheat crust. Whisking together the flour and the salt. Working quickly, either with a pastry cutter or a food processor, cut in the butter only until it looks like small pebbles.

3. Mix the egg yolk with half of the ice water, add this to the mixture and pulse a few times. Then slowly add just enough additional water for the dough to come together when you press it between your fingers. It should still appear a bit crumbly. Dump the dough out onto a long piece of plastic wrap, mash it into a round disk, and put it in the fridge for an hour (or into the freezer for a bit less than that – I often do this when I’m in a hurry).

4. When the dough’s chilly and firm, take it out and put it on your floured surface. You’ll need to let it warm up just a bit — just to the point where it’s not too cold so it’s easy to work with. Roll out your dough, lay it into the tart pan, and pop into the freezer for 15 minutes, or until the dough is firm (very important for dough to be firm so it won’t fall in on itself when you get to the next step). Note: you can do this days in advance.

5. Half-bake the crust. Brush the dough with an egg white mixed with a little water, and pop into the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the crust turns a light brown.

6. While the crust is baking, toss your leeks and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a large skillet and cook on low until the leeks caramelize — this’ll take about 15 to 20 minutes. Let the leeks cool.

7. When the crust has cooked, take it out to cool and increase the heat to 450°F/230°C. Toss the potatoes on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, drizzle them with a tablespoon or two of olive oil, some salt and pepper, and pop them in the oven for about 20 to 30 minutes or until browned. Let them cool.

8. To make the tart, mix up the eggs, milk, nutmeg, and a pinch of sea salt and pepper. Layer the potatoes and leeks in the tart shell, pour in the eggy-milky mixture, and top with the cheese. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes or until set.

Blé Sucre’s Glazed Madeleines

Cowgirl Chef — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 11:27:25 +0000

Madeleines are one of those things that people think Frenchies sit around nibbling all day long with tiny coffees but they really don’t. You’ve heard of the French Paradox? Well, this is the French Madeleine Myth. Nobody eats them.

Reason is they’re bo-ring. And almost always tasteless and dry.

So why did I bother making them and writing a post about it?

Well, because the ones I had a couple of weeks ago at Blé Sucre, considered one of the top boulangerie/patisseries in Paris, was not any of these things.

It was transformational. Light as air — like a shell-shaped cakey cloud — and slightly crisp around the edges, as any cookie should be, even though these are far more gâteau than cookie, if you ask me. Plus it had the thing that proper madeleines must have: a poof. But it also had something that most do not: a glaze. Which is sets Blé Sucre’s madeleines apart from the rest and frankly, what gives them their magic.

So imagine my glee when the other day, I was glancing through an old issue of Bon Appetit and found a photograph of said magic madeleines that said I could find the recipe online, which I did.

And my double, triple jolt of happy when these turned out to taste EXACTLY like the ones that I’d just eaten. They were, in a word, perfect.

Which is why I ate four of them — four, y’all! — just like that.

I will make them for my next party. I will make them for people I love. I will make these again and again, wherever I am, because they are easy, elegant, and most wonderful with coffees both tiny and grande. And I will eat them all damn day long.

Blé Sucre’s Glazed Madeleines

Makes 18

Adapted from a recipe from Blé Sucre in Paris found in Bon Appetit (March 2012)

Know that the batter will thicken up like crazy. Don’t worry. Just be sure and let it rest in the fridge overnight so it makes the bubbles needed to give it the tummy poof. Also, I cut back on the amount of orange zest called for in the recipe because what I liked about the Blé Sucre madeleines was that they weren’t too citrusy — and I’m glad I did. The reduced amount of zest means the madeleines have a very slight orangey flavor and the glaze amps it up just fine.

1 cup of flour
1 ¼ teaspoons of baking powder
¼ teaspoon of finely grated orange zest
½ cup/100 grams of sugar
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of milk
1 ¼ sticks (10 tablespoons/150 grams) of butter, melted
1 cup/120 grams of powdered sugar
3 to 4 tablespoons of fresh orange juice

1. Whisk the flour and baking powder together in a small bowl and set this aside.

2. In another small bowl, rub the orange zest into the sugar with your fingers — a trick I learned from Dorie Greenspan that helps to perfume the sugar. Now pour this into your mixer bowl along with the eggs and beat until it’s light yellow.

3. Add the flour and blend. Now add the milk and the melted butter and mix this until the batter is shiny. Cover and refrigerate overnight so the batter will rest and make bubbles — this is so you’ll get poofy tummy madeleines — no one wants a flat stomach on a madeleine.

4. The next day, preheat your oven to 450°F/230°C and generously butter your madeleine pan. Your batter may be very thick. Worry not. Just spoon out enough to fill to the top and slide into the oven for 8 to 10 minutes if you have a convection oven; slightly longer if not. Know that my madeleines poofed easily and quickly with the convection setting and didn’t poof as much cooking them the conventional way – but they were just as delicious. Either way, let them bake until they’re brown on the edges and a bit inside, too. Remove from the oven and give it a good whack on the countertop to release the madeleines. Let them cool five minutes before you glaze them.

5. To make the glaze, simply whisk the powdered sugar and orange juice together in a smallish bowl, but one big enough to dip the madeleines in. When they’ve cooled, simply dip the non-ridged side into the glaze and then put them on a rack to dry. It won’t take long — and neither will eating them. These taste best the day they’re made.

Chipotle Black Bean Burgers

Cowgirl Chef — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:28:42 +0000

You’re gonna have to take my word for it that there’s a burger hidden in that pita and underneath that mess of arugula and crazy avalanche of feta. It’s there and it’s a darn tasty one, too, especially when you’re living in the land of no-Angus, as I am in here in Paris.

Enter the black bean burger – a little number I whipped up the other night with leftover black beans and rice along with a few other things — so easy, people!

I thought about going to the boulangerie and picking up some brioche buns but that would make the whole meal super-bready and I’ve been trying to cut back on the bread lately…well, kinda sorta, if you don’t count the pain au chocolat I had for breakfast and the chouquettes I snacked on before that. Truth be told, I was too lazy to make that loooong, 2 minute walk, so I made do with the pita bread that I had on hand. It worked just fine, and I piled on the sweet potato fries instead.

I do love the sweet potato, as anyone who knows me knows oh too well. I make fries like this – in smallish cubes — because they cook faster, but what I really want is to be able to cut them into those waffle shapes like they have at Goodfriend’s in Dallas, my new favorite burger spot. I’m serious. I want to make sweet potato waffle fries at home. I think if I could do this, my life would be complete.

Chipotle Black Bean Burgers

Makes 5 burgers

2 ½ cups/430 grams of black beans (if using canned, be sure to drain and rinse them)
1 cup/195 grams of cooked brown rice
1 clove of garlic, minced
¼ of a yellow onion, diced
½ cup/63 grams of toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
2 chipotle chiles (in adobo), finely chopped
½ teaspoon of cumin
¼ teaspoon of sea salt
1 to 2 tablespoons of olive oil
5 halves of pita bread, for serving
3 ounces/80 grams of arugula, for serving
5 ounces/150 grams of feta, crumbled

1. In a medium-size bowl, mash your black beans and rice together with a hand potato masher — you want them to stay somewhat chunky.

2. Add the garlic, onion, walnuts, chipotles, cumin, salt and pepper. Mix this up and with an ice cream scoop, make burger patties and put them on a cookie sheet in the fridge so they’ll firm up a bit until you’re ready to cook them.

3. Put the olive oil in a large skillet and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the burgers and cook for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, turning the heat down to medium low so they cook all the way through. Serve in a pita (or on a bigger, bready item) with arugula and feta.

Saturday Night Salad

Cowgirl Chef — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 04:58:19 +0000

I’m a planner in lots of areas of my life, but dinner’s not always one of them. Instead, I try to keep the pantry stocked with things that I know I like and can do different things with, and most of the time, this works just fine.

Like this salad, a variation on My Big Fat French Salad in the cookbook, an idea born out of the brillllliant idea of putting roasted potatoes on a salad which I had for the first time years ago at the bistro Le Relais Gascon in Montmartre with my friend Suzanne.

I wasn’t even thinking about salads or anything beyond getting a kilo of coffee beans at the little roaster at the market at Ternes not far from where I live. I love this little coffee roaster. The gleaming fire engine red roaster takes up nearly the whole shop, and you have to step sideways to get to the cash register. It’s all about the coffee here, and they have one roast, the Orientale, that I really like – super-dark, glossy beans that are strong without being too coarse or bitter.

On another note, I’m trying to imagine what I might do with the coffee bean sacks, which they sell here for 2 euros apiece. I haven’t bought any yet, but I do think they’d make for a very interesting chair cover. Maybe.

Anyway, once I had my coffee beans in hand, my head already started to clear and I started to imagine dinner when I saw broccoli on sale at the veggie seller adjacent to the coffee place. I may have mentioned that I am the only one in the apartment who loves broccoli, but that doesn’t stop me from buying it and making it all the time.

That’s how it always begins. One thing leads me in, then that leads to another…in this case, some beautiful potatoes, onions, leeks, garlic, and a big box of salad greens that for 2 euros I couldn’t resist. Oh, and little cherry tomatoes, which yes, I know are not in season, but they looked so pretty, I just had to give them a try.

Still no idea about dinner beyond broccoli but I now had a whole sack of veggies to tote home on the metro.

I decided to roast the potatoes and see where that would take me, and when I reached into the fridge to grab the Dijon so I could make a vinaigrette, I saw the last bit of the smoked salmon that X had brought home the day before, some seriously wonderful stuff that claimed on the package to have smoked the salmon “the Russian way,” meaning that it was smoked over a wood fire and not in an oven. Like barbecue, I guess. Anyway, this salmon wasn’t salty as so much smoked salmon can be. It was lightly smoked, moist and, well, perfect.

So there I was, with dinner.

Which is often how things go, right? You set off in one direction to do one thing and end up on a completely different path.

Yes, sometimes a salad is just a salad, but often what I end up putting on the table is a reflection of how I try to live my life. The not-knowing exactly how things will turn out is the fun of it all.

Saturday Night Salad

Makes 2 dinner-size salads

1 pound/500 grams of red-skinned potatoes, chopped into bite-size pieces
2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil
sea salt and pepper
5.30 ounces/200 grams of mixed salad greens
about 7 ounces/200 grams of smoked salmon, chopped into small pieces
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
E-Z French vinaigrette, recipe here

1. Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Toss your potatoes onto the cookie sheet along with with the olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper, and make sure they’re evenly coated. Bake for 30-45 minutes, flipping the potatoes over to the other side about halfway through so they’ll brown on both sides.

3. Put all of your salad greens in a large bowl and toss with a few tablespoons of E-Z French Vinaigrette — less is more because you just want these delicate leaves lightly coated with the vinaigrette. Divide this between two dinner plates and top with some of the potatoes, half of the cherry tomatoes and the salmon. Voilà! — easy enough for a TV night or fancy enough for a casual dinner party.

Cowgirl Tip: Warm up any leftover potatoes the next night and serve with a couple of fried eggs on top. Pass the Valentina.