tomato_kumato

When I lived in France, I kind of expected to be eating gourmet food all the time. This was not the case in this working-class family from the North. Sure, I learned my gratin dauphinoise recipe from them (sorry about all the teasing… Dylan has told me I have to share this recipe, and as soon as I make it and have some pictures, it’ll get up here), and they had one of those fun little individually sized raclette machines that everyone over here seems to have, but really, there was a lot of high-quality soup from a box, a couple of pasta dishes thrown together, an amazing cheese platter, a rotisserie chicken on their son’s birthday, and these potatoes.

Sure, when they had them, it was a white porcelain bowl of new potatoes and a side dish of sauce, along with a plate of high quality ham, but it’s the sauce that matters, not the presentation, so instead of serving myself a dainty portion of potatoes, I make one big potato and add the sauce, mashing it up in a bowl.

The French also like to peel their potatoes (Britney recently shared with me that they also peel their nectarines… bizarre), but I like chunks of peel in my mashed potatoes. The family I stayed with looked at me as though I was crazy when I simply poured the yogurt sauce over my new potatoes and squashed them slightly with the tines of my fork, as they painstakingly peeled each tiny potato, slicing them into small chunks on the plate before pouring the sauce over the white flesh, the peels pushed to the very corner.

I like things the way I like them. My heat is off because I’d rather not pay for it, so I’m in my bed wrapped in two duvets, studying for exams. I don’t want to go grocery shopping, and I have to clean out my fridge. Potatoes are what are available, so potatoes I shall eat.

Pommes de terre au yaourt (serves one)

Boil one potato for about 20 minutes, or until a fork goes through without resistance. (Alternatively, you could steam the potato, but I don’t have a steamer.) Meanwhile, combine half a cup of fromage frais (or plain yogurt, for those of you in the states) with a tablespoon of good dijon mustard and a teaspoon of dried chives. Mix with a fork and add the potato. Use the tines of your fork to mash the potato into the sauce. Consume. Leave the dishes for later.

We didn’t always eat salad in my house. I don’t remember when the bowl of greens dressed in a simple vinaigrette first made an appearance… my mother seems to think she always made it, but I know better. I remember not liking salad at all, but then at some point, hot veggies started being replaced or accompanied by a huge salad in a glass bowl, greens, oil, vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper. My sister and I started eating salad all the time. My brother still doesn’t like it.

***

I went to a boarding high school, where we ate cafeteria food three meals a day. The bread was stale. The soup was salty. I used to eat five or six oranges a day because the fresh fruit was usually good. My friends used to make fun of my tendencies to pick one item of produce and stick to it for every meal for a few weeks, until I couldn’t bear it anymore. Bowls of tiny cherry tomatoes. Plates of apples sliced with peanut butter. Sticky rice with soy sauce. Spinach nuked in the microwave and covered with salt and black pepper. Romaine lettuce with feta and balsamic vinaigrette.

***

When I went to France for the first time, I lived with a host family in the north. On Wednesdays, we ate lunch at home. Usually chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes that came from a box. And salad. Endive and apples with cider vinaigrette. Beets and goats cheese. Carottes rapees. Grated celery root with mayonnaise.

***

In college, I got my first kitchen. In the beginning, I reveled in being able to cook for myself. After awhile though, I hated trudging down to the 24-hour Dominion to buy food. I would buy huge heads of lettuce and a few wedges of cheese and assemble 4, 5, 6 salads a day. I accumulated a stack of bowls at my desk, still slick with oil from the homemade vinaigrette my grandmother taught me to make. I would work all night and go to bed at sunrise, having eaten salad while the sky was still dark.

***

The Canadian is gone. He’s gone to Spain, then to Argentina. I’ll see him again in a few months, but I don’t have the heart to cook anything anymore. When he was here, I never had to think about being hungry–he was always hungry first. He had a “hungry noise,” a low-pitched whine like a puppy, and then he would make a sad face. What do you want? The answers varied, but there were only a few options. Chili. Eggs and potatoes. Tuna casserole-ish. Pasta with pesto. Pasta with sausage. Pâté and cheese. I rolled my eyes when I went into the kitchen, but the truth was, I loved when he asked me to make him things. Especially when he stared at me after cleaning his bowl, hoping there were seconds. There always were. I know how to feed the Canadian.

I’m back on salads now. I didn’t eat too many when the Canadian was here… Whenever I tried to make some to get some vitamins, he looked at me like I was a little crazy, and besides, why make salad when I’m already making something else for him? But now I don’t have the will to cook for one, so I assemble. Endive and beets. Romaine and parmesan. Frisée and brie. I’ll be home in a few days, where I’m expected to contribute gratin dauphinoise and sambusik cookies to the Christmas meal. Until then, I’m slicing apples on top of lettuce and calling it dinner.

I was not raised in a typical American household. My mother is a trained cook, and while she never went professional, her ability to replicate restaurant dishes from one taste is frankly uncanny. As such, I was raised with a revolving door of meal options for dinner. An invitation to my table was always coveted by my friends, where they could come and watch my Jackie O. mother: jet black bouffant, huge dark sunglasses, brick red lipstick, black ballet flats before they were cool, French scarves arranged just so. She looked about twenty-five. She still claims to be, which will be awkward when I become older than her in less than five years.

When I watch those cooking shows like Sandra Lee or that woman who makes five meals out of three ingredients, I’m frankly confused. My mother ran schedules for four children (five, if you, like my mother, count my father as one) and still managed to get a gourmet dinner on the table every evening. I don’t quite get those microwavable meals: we used to get Birds Eye green beans and spaetzle in pesto, but only because my father and I whined and complained until she bought it. She makes her own creamed onions. A woman who makes her own creamed onions is not ever going to make you eat Manwich, Hamburger Helper, Rice-a-Roni, or tuna casserole.

The only casserole I’ve ever had is lasagna, which I don’t really count as a casserole anyway, because it’s lasagna. So you can imagine my surprise when the Canadian, hungry one afternoon when I had already put away a delicious panini, asked for tuna casserole.

OK, to be fair, he didn’t actually pronounce those words. What he asked for was pasta with “maybe some tuna, mayo and cheese.” I looked at him like he was insane until he validated his request by saying that it was “tuna-casserole-ish,” which didn’t really validate it at all in my mind. I was still standing there asking myself how the boy who wanted his last meal on earth to be a seared ahi-tuna steak could possibly be sitting on my couch in shorts and a bucket hat from Mallorca asking me to make him tuna casserole.

But I was up for the challenge. Into the kitchen I went, trying to think how in the world I was going to pull off something that actually tasted good.

First of all, I didn’t have any mayonnaise. At home, we always have Hellman’s, but I only eat it on turkey sandwiches, and the French aren’t too keen on turkey sandwiches (they eat a lot of ham), so I have mustard as a standard, and no mayo. No problem, I’ll just borrow from carbonara and mix some egg yolk with olive oil to make a barely cooked sauce at the end. Now the problem was cheese: he didn’t want a cheese sauce, he wanted the cheese melted in. But cheese melted in always gets all globby and nasty and I wouldn’t stand for that. So I grated the parmesan into the egg and oil mixture and mixed it around. When the pasta came out, I started adding the egg mixture, stirring and watching as it became a thick, creamy sauce (I always think that’s like magic, no matter how many times I do it). Newly confident, I added the tuna and some black pepper and gave it a taste.

The verdict? Tuna casserole is weird. The Canadian is weird. But he liked it: he even asked me to make it again a few days ago, which is good, because the first time I was so bewildered that I forgot to take a picture, and I wasn’t able to share this very interesting bit of Americana with you. So there you have it: a recipe for Tuna Casserole-ish. If you grew up with tuna casserole, like the Canadian, you might like it. As for me, I’m going to stick with the ahi… the whole cheese and tuna thing just isn’t doing it for me.

Tuna Casserole-ish

Cook enough pasta for two people (or one Canadian) in a large pot of salted water. I like rigatoni or even penne. While the pasta is cooking, combine one egg yolk with about a tablespoon (maybe two) of good olive oil, pepper, and a couple of tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese (to taste). When the pasta is cooked, drain it, reserving a little bit of the pasta water. Turn off the heat and return the pasta to the pot. Using your wooden spoon, add a little bit of the egg, oil, cheese mixture at a time, stirring to combine and making sure that the egg doesn’t curdle. The sauce should thicken to a creamy consistency. When all of the sauce is added, break in one small can of tuna with a fork. Mix to combine. If the sauce seems too thick, you can thin it out with some of the pasta water. Serve with extra cheese on the side. Serves two normal people or one very hungry Canadian.

More than any other time of year, I feel like winter screams for a certain kind of food, and that food is made in a deep stock pot. Winter is soup time. The Canadian noticed about as soon as I did. As I was boiling the leftover turkey bones in a pot for stock, he looked over, lifted his eyebrows in his Canadian way, and asked,

“Soup?”

“No… stock.”

“What?”

“Stock. I boil the bones to make stock. It’s a soup base.”

“Does this mean I will eventually be able to eat soup?”

“Yes.”

And he was. A few days later, I took out my stock and decided to make a pot of minestrone, one of my favorite soups. I would have gone with the typical chicken noodle, but the Canadian likes tomato, mushroom and vegetable soups, so I figured minestrone was a good compromise.

A few days later, Britney and I decided we weren’t quite done with the soup thing (plus we’ve both become obsessed with gridskipper.com, and an article a couple of weeks ago touted the local soup bars). We decided to go to Bar à Soupes in the 11th, near Bastille. We showed up at nine, so a few of the soups had run out, but we had the choice of a soup de marché (a vegetable soup), tomato-ginger, carrot-coriander, celery-bleu d’Auvergne, and split pea. As we were trying to decide, the lady behind the bar (literally, Soup Bar is just a bar with soups, salads and desserts and a few tables), let us know that there was a 6.50 option where you could sample three small soups with a roll… perfect for me and Britney who can’t make decisions.

Britney decided on vegetable, split pea and tomato-ginger. I went for tomato-ginger, carrot-coriander and celery-bleu d’Auvergne, which is strange, because I don’t like celery in general, but I couldn’t look away from the pale green, velvety soup. In the end, this one ended up being my favorite: it tasted less like celery than like an amalgamation of fresh vegetables with the definite tang and creaminess of blue cheese. Britney liked the split pea, so I guess the creamy soups were the winners. The other soups were good as well, tasting fresh and of their essential ingredients. We finished by splitting a piece of warm and melty chocolate cake. It seems that others have come to appreciate it as well: as we left around ten, two more groups had come in to sit and eat.

Minestrone (adapted from Gourmet, March 1993)

rind of parmesan cheese

1 28-oz. can of white beans
1/4 pound pancetta
1/3 cup olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 large carrot, cut into half-moons
1 rib of celery, cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
2 zucchini, scrubbed and cut into half-moons
4 cups shredded green cabbage (preferably Savoy)
a 28-ounce can tomatoes, chopped coarse, with juice
4 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 cup small pasta
salt, pepper, dried basil

In a heavy kettle cook the pancetta in the oil over moderate heat, stirring, until it is crisp and pale golden. Remove and add the onion, and cook until the onion is softened. Add the carrots, the celery, and the garlic and cook the mixture, stirring, for 4 minutes. Add the zucchini and cook the mixture, stirring, for 4 minutes. Add the cabbage and cook until the cabbage is wilted. Add the tomatoes, parmesan rind and the broth and simmer the soup, covered, for 1 hour. Stir the white beans into the soup. Simmer the soup, uncovered, for 15 minutes, and season it with salt, pepper and basil. Add the pasta and simmer until cooked. Add the pancetta and serve. The soup may be made 3 days in advance and kept covered and chilled. Reheat the soup, thinning it with water as desired.

When I first learned how to cook (that is, cook things besides Kraft Dinner, omelettes and grilled cheese) more than three years ago, one of the first things I learned how to make was tomato sauce. The second was lasagna. What are you going to do with a vat of tomato sauce when you’re just one person?

My mother taught me, as she teaches everything, by speaking, not by showing or writing down, and so I would repeat the instructions to myself nervously as I made my lasagna.

It worked out well. It definitely wasn’t my mother’s, but I was able to feed my friends, and when I finally moved from Toronto to Paris, it was one of the two recipes (along with my guacamole) that my friend Mel asked me for. Well, I have yet to give her the recipe, because I teach by showing, but when I do, it’s not going to be the one I made three years ago.

I’m sorry, Mommy. But to be fair, it was never the same when I made it, and this one comes so much closer to the saucy, crispy around the edges, cheesy, flavorful lasagna that I remember you serving us when we were kids. And I did get it from an Italian… that has to count for something, right?

This lasagna comes from the one and only Little Big Head (Giada de Laurentiis), whom I have hardly ever trusted with anything culinary. I guess she couldn’t have been all wrong… it does take some talent to make your hair stand up that high and to say decadent at a rate of about once every hundred words, but Giada, I’ve made fun of you for too long, and I’m sorry. You’ve proven me wrong with this lasagna, so now I’m sharing it with the world in hopes of redeeming myself.

Classic Italian Lasagna (courtesy of foodnetwork.com)

Bechamel Sauce:
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus 2 tablespoons for the lasagna
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups whole milk at room temperature
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
Salt and white pepper1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound ground chuck beef
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 pounds ricotta cheese
3 large eggs
1 pound lasagna sheets, cooked al dente
2 packages (10 ounces each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
3 cups shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.Bechamel sauce:
In a 2-quart pot, melt 5 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. When butter has completely melted, add the flour and whisk until smooth, about 2 minutes. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly to prevent any lumps from forming. Continue to simmer and whisk over medium heat until the sauce is thick, smooth and creamy, about 10 minutes. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of wooden spoon. Remove from heat and add the nutmeg and tomato sauce. Stir until well combined and check for seasoning. Set aside and allow to cool completely.

In a saute pan, heat extra-virgin olive oil. When almost smoking, add the ground beef and season with salt and pepper. Brown meat, breaking any large lumps, until it is no longer pink. Remove from heat and drain any excess fat. Set aside and allow to cool completely.

In a medium sized bowl, thoroughly mix the ricotta and eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Into the bottom of a 13 by 9-inch baking dish, spread 1/3 of the bechamel sauce. Arrange the pasta sheets side by side, covering the bottom of the baking dish. Evenly spread a layer of all the ricotta mixture and then a layer of all the spinach. Arrange another layer of pasta sheets and spread all the ground beef on top. Sprinkle 1/2 the mozzarella cheese on top of the beef. Spread another 1/3 of the bechamel sauce. Arrange the final layer of pasta sheets and top with remaining bechamel, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Cut the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter into 1/4-inch cubes and top lasagna.

Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place lasagna dish on top, cover and put on the middle rack of the oven and bake until top is bubbling, about 30 minutes. Remove cover and continue to bake for about 15 minutes.

This keeps well, just reheat it in the oven (or microwave for just one serving). It tastes even better the next day. Serve with extra tomato sauce and parmesan on the side.