sauced

Simple Smoked Trout Salad with Creamy Tarragon Dressing

By Karena:

The perfect detox to a weekend of decadence, a simple salad of greens, smoked trout, chopped tomato and sweet pepper beckons.

Ingredients:

For the Salad:

- 1 lb. baby romaine or other greens

- 1 lb. smoked trout, torn into pieces

- 1 sweet pepper, diced

- 1 ripe tomato, diced

- a bunch of scallions, white parts sliced

- avocado, diced (optional)

For the Dressing:

- 3 T mayonnaise

- 3 T sour cream

- 1/2 cup buttermilk

- Chopped bunch of tarragon leaves

- 1 tsp. garlic powder

- 1 tsp. onion powder

- salt and pepper to taste

- Hot Spanish Paprika (optional)

Directions:

1. Put the salad greens, trout, sweet pepper, tomato, scallions, and avocado (if using) in a bowl and toss together. 

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients.

3.  Serve the salad in bowls and dress with the creamy tarragon dressing.  Enjoy!

Garden Fresh Grilled Pizza

By Liz

There are few things that make me happier than firing up the garden grill for the first spring barbeque of the year. On Saturday the temperature skimmed 60 degrees and friends descended en masse, wine and sausage in hand, to bask in the jacketless dusk.

The tricky part about having a garden bbq in New York in March is there isn’t yet any garden. With a little improvisation and a few carefully arranged houseplants, I recreated the illusion of summer so successfully that I was asked more than once if my pizza toppings were fresh from the garden.

I attribute this in no small part to the dazzlingly fresh flavors of my grilled pizzas (ok, and a little bit to the wine). The thin, crispy dough is grilled quickly, drizzled with olive oil, and then heaped with garden goodness: arugula, cherry tomatoes, basil, shallots, onion slivers, cheese, and topped with a sprinkle of red wine vinegar.

Notice there’s no sauce. You can throw a dash on if you’re partial of course – this is a mix and match kind of operation – but there’s really no need.

The result is cheap and cheerful, and astonishingly good. So good, in fact, that I set a new personal best by eating my pizzas no fewer than three times over a 24-hour period. I’m not necessarily advocating this approach, but I do recommend you try it once. You’ll never look at pizza in the same way again.

Garden Fresh Grilled Pizza

Makes 2 pizzas

One package of Trader Joe’s prepared pizza dough*

1 cup cherry tomatoes, preferably assorted colors

1 small onion, cut in half and slivered

1 shallot, finely chopped

4 cups arugula

Large bunch of basil, roughly chopped

2 cups grated parmesan

2 cups grated mozzarella

Red wine vinegar

Olive oil

Salt, pepper

* Pizza dough is very easy to make, and I often make my own. But since it has to be done ahead of time, I find Trader Joe’s to be a simple, convenient alternative.

Prepare all toppings, and put them in prep bowls by the grill. Soak chopped shallots in a mixture of red wine vinegar and water, to take the bite out.

Preheat the grill to medium high, and brush with olive oil. 

Roll out dough into two 12-inch pies. You will want it to be fairly thin, but don’t exceed the size of your grill. I roll all my pies out at once and then layer them with saran wrap in a large, flat-bottomed fry pan.

Carry pies out to grill, and lay directly on the grill. After about a minute, rotate pies 180 degrees to make sure it’s cooking evenly. Dough will begin to puff in big bubbles, 2-3 minutes.

Slide off the grill and flip, reducing heat to low. Drizzle with olive oil, cover with cheese, herbs and vegetables, and sprinkle with red wine vinegar and salt and pepper.

Close the grill top to let the toppings warm, 1-2 minutes. Serve immediately.

Spicy Lemon-Rosemary Shrimp

By Liz

Today was a grumpy Monday. It wasn’t a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day, simply one of those days where nothing very bad happens, but nothing good does either. It kicked off with my accidentally silencing my alarm, and when I awoke a panicked hour later, the day slid slowly but surely into a tickytack funk.

It was one of those days that would normally be salvaged by coming home to a warm kitchen with Shravan enveloped in a cloud of coriander, stirring up some fragrant spicy sauce and pouring me wine. But Shravan’s in Africa, and as much as I love Skype, it doesn’t cook me dinner.

So there was only one course of action: I sought refuge in the mother of all fallback meals, a spicy lemon-rosemary shrimp that practically cooks itself and then does the dishes.

­The first thing I did when I got home was pop a bottle of pinot and the last of Judy’s bourbon balls. (A friendly mason jar is shuttling back and forth between our two apartments, each time bearing decadent sweets.)

Feeling a bit better, I set rice on to boil and shrimp out to thaw. The beauty of this dish is it requires exactly one bag of frozen shrimp and one lemon; the rest of the ingredients reside in any well-stocked cupboard.

It’s adapted from a recipe that Mandy Warmbier, sister of Sauced co-blogger Karena, submitted to The Barefoot Cookbook, a collection of recipe favorites that we compiled for Karena’s wedding. I believe Mandy adapted it from a restaurant originally, and while I love her version, it requires far more patience and butter than I usually have at the ready.

Mine is a quick stovetop deal, intended for nights you’re hungry and harried and just want a warm bowl of fragrant food. After inhaling the spoonfuls of spicy shrimp, I felt almost human again.

Spicy Lemon-Rosemary Shrimp

1 1/2 c. rice, steamed
1 lb. of shrimp, defrosted and shelled
1 T. of butter
2 T. of olive oil
3 cloves garlic, grated
1 tsp. crushed rosemary
dried red chilies
1 T. Worcestire sauce
1 lemon, juiced
Tabasco to taste
freshly ground salt and pepper, to taste

Steam rice. Grate garlic. Heat butter and olive oil in a nonstick pan over low heat (technically, you could do with less oil, but heck, I’ve had a crummy day). Add in garlic, rosemary and chili flakes. Be careful not to let the garlic burn – if it starts to brown, turn the heat down immediately. Cook until garlic and chilies are fragrant, 1-2 minutes.

Add shrimp and turn heat to high. Cook until shrimp is just pink (1-2 minutes), and add Worcestire, lemon, Tabasco and salt/pepper to taste. Continue stirring until shrimp is cooked through. Serve over rice with a squeeze of lemon.

Baked Acorn Squash with Fruit and Gruyere

By Liz

I’m blown away by my coworkers. They’re eloquent, intelligent and passionate, and none more so than my boss, a published poet with a gift for precise phrasing. As the new kid in town, I’m determined to prove my communications chops.

For my first assignment, I was asked to remake the Press, a clunky company newsletter that could be a case study against layout in Word. I love blogging, so I figured I’d pretty the Press up by taking it digital… what could possibly go wrong?

After over 100 painstaking hours of designing Press 2.0, I held my breath and emailed the link to all 190 staff. I just forgot one thing: 160 of them work from school district offices… that block outside blogs. As I copied my pretty Press down from the Web and back into Word, defeated, I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony.

So at the end of the day, I wanted nothing more than a glass of wine and Dinner 1.0, something comforting, casual, and impossible to mess up. A while back, Sauced reader Heather (herself a talented poet and editor of the Blood Orange Review) had emailed me a recipe for baked acorn squash, her comfort food of choice as a poor, tired grad student in the Pacific Northwest.

She described the dish as a foodie’s mac and cheese, and it fit that description to a T. Each warm spoonful was a buttery bite of contentment, a perfect end to an imperfect day.

Baked Acorn Squash with Fruit and Gruyere Stuffing
From Heather Hummel  

2 Acorn Squash
1/2 tsp salt, divided
1/8 tsp pepper
2 leeks, trimmed and sliced
2 TBS butter
1 pear, cored and chopped
1 apple, cored and chopped
1 1/3 cups cubed french bread (or darker bread for a richer taste)
4 oz. Gruyere cheese, shredded
2 TBS minced chives
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Heat oven to 400. Halve and bake the squash until tender. Sprinkle squash with half of the salt and pepper. While squash is baking, cook leeks in butter, in a skillet for 12-15 minutes (medium temp) until tender and browned. Increase temp to medium-high; add fruit and cook about five minutes until fruit is tender too. Stir in remaining ingredients, including remaining salt and pepper. Stuff into squash and bake for 10-15 minutes or until heated through.

White Chocolate Grapes with Orange Curd

By Liz

If the world is divided between people who cook and those who bake, I’m definitely the former. I inherited this from my mother, a fabulous cook, who dreads desserts and approaches Christmas cookie exchanges with stoic resignation.

So when it came to designing a dessert for the Grapes of Wrath party challenge, I took my mother’s time-honored approach of finding a simple, no-bake recipe that would be impossible to mangle.

White chocolate-covered grapes fit the bill beautifully. The whole process took 20 minutes from start to finish, and can be executed almost entirely in the microwave (though I stuck with the stove).

The result was judged delicious by two sets of friends, including the discerning palates of Sam and Zeno (ages 12 and 17), photography assistants-in-residence at the Hason household. Quickly devoured at both dinner and brunch, the grapes were declared “diet truffles” for their creamy chocolate coating and burst of fruit. An added bonus: in a pretty mason jar, they make great hostess gifts.

White Chocolate–Coated Grapes with Orange Curd
From Food & Wine

Curd
2 cups fresh orange juice (I added blood oranges for color)
4 large egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

Grapes
4 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound green or red grapes, stemmed and chilled
2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

Make the curd: In a saucepan, boil the orange juice until it’s reduced to 1/3 cup, about 12 minutes. Let cool.

In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar. Whisk in the reduced orange juice and stir in the butter. Microwave the mixture on high power for 1 minute, until thickened. Whisk until smooth. Press a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the curd and refrigerate until chilled.

Make the grapes: Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the white chocolate with the oil. Microwave for 1 minute, until the chocolate is just melted; whisk until smooth. Let cool.

Dry the grapes with a towel and set them in a large bowl. Pour in the chocolate, folding to coat. Sift the confectioners’ sugar on top and stir until the grapes separate; transfer to the baking sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes, until the chocolate sets. Serve the grapes in glasses with the orange curd in ramekins alongside.

Great Grape Challenge: Part I

By Liz

We received our first reader request this week. The challenge: design a themed appetizer and dessert menu for a ladies’ book club reading The Grapes of Wrath.

I liked the idea of going with a literal interpretation, both because the whole migrant-worker-hardship angle doesn’t really lend itself to apps and because I’ve never cooked with grapes. I also added my own parameters to the challenge: ideally the food would be relatively inexpensive and easy to prepare for a group of 12.

I’ll be introducing my grape ideas over three posts. Each suggestion has been carefully vetted by the lovely ladies in the apartment upstairs, who are always game to test my creations.

My first Grapes of Wrath foray: grape-topped flatbreads, one sweet and one savory. While I’d normally make my own dough, for simplicity’s sake I snagged a pre-made bag from Trader Joe’s (if you’d like to make your own, you can reference Karena’s post on homemade pizza).

These two flatbreads, adapted from FoodTV and Food & Wine, were supremely easy, quick, and earned rave reviews with the tasting panel. The savory flatbread was slightly more popular, but both were instantly devoured and highly recommended.

Rosemary Flatbread with Blue Cheese, Grapes and Honey
Adapted from Food & Wine

1 package pre-made pizza dough
2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
1 1/2 cups red grapes, halved
Coarse sea salt
3 ounces blue cheese, crumbled (1/2 cup)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon snipped chives
Freshly ground salt and pepper, to taste

Preheat the oven to 450°.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, and roll the dough out until 1/2 inch thick. Transfer to an oiled baking sheet. Press the grapes into the dough and sprinkle with sea salt.

Bake flatbread for about 10-12 minutes, until the crust is just golden and the grapes have begun to release some of their juices. Sprinkle the blue cheese on top and bake for about 2 minutes longer, until the cheese melts. Slide the flatbread onto a work surface and drizzle with the honey and sprinkle with the chives. Cut into wedges and serve.

Flat Bread Topped with Caramelized Onions, Prosciutto, Blue Cheese Mascarpone and Red Grapes
Adapted from Tyler Florence, FoodTV.com

1 store-bought pizza dough
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 large onions, sliced
All-purpose flour, for dusting
1 (8-ounce) container mascarpone cheese
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
Freshly ground salt and black pepper
3 oz. thinly sliced prosciutto
1 cup firm red grapes, halved
1 tablespoon snipped chives

In a large saute pan over medium low heat add 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Add onions and slowly caramelize until brown and creamy about 20 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 450°. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, and roll the dough out until 1/2 inch thick. Transfer to an oiled baking sheet. Bake flatbread for about 10-12 minutes, until the crust is just golden.

In a medium bowl, mix together the mascarpone and blue cheese. Smear the cheese mixture over the bread. Place in oven for 2 to 3 minutes until the cheese melts. Remove from oven and transfer to cutting board or platter.

Top with caramelized onions, sliced prosciutto and fresh grapes. Season with a few turns of freshly ground black pepper and top with chives.

Eton Dumplings… Made by Judy

By Liz

Things I love about Brooklyn:

1. Neighborhood shops – grocers, bakers, coffee-roasters, tamale-makers – that do one thing, and do it really well.
2. Eton, the Carroll Gardens cubbyhole that makes nothing but dumplings, noodles, and shaved ice (in the summer).
3. Judy, amidst earning her high-powered law degree, rolling dumplings at Eton several nights a week.

Judy came about this gig in the quintessential Brooklyn way: sitting on her stoop, and chatting with a guy who knew a guy. That guy knew that Eton, the classically-trained chef who fell in love with shaved ice on his honeymoon, was looking for a dumpling-maker.

Judy knew that Eton could use her skills, since she had already given him a Korean kimchee dumpling recipe, which sold out as a special. So she wandered over, was offered a rolling pin and, within minutes, a job.

It’s just one more reason to love the shop and its $3.50 set of five dense, juicy dumplings. The place is not perfect: the sparse shop has all the charm of a college dorm, and the veggie dumplings taste like rabbit food.

But the price is right for the pork, which have become more consistent as the restaurant hits its stride (it opened last summer.) And I still have try the hand-pulled noodles, and hopefully the famous kimchee. 

Judy looking like a badass in the tiny Eton kitchen

Judy's delicious handiwork