Puntarelle: My New Best Friend

When I was poking around the net to see if I could find nutritional information about my new best friend,



I found this picture on the Produce Hunter website:




And the Royal Rose Products site (Everything Radicchio!) describes it as a "cross between asparagus growing out of a fennel bulb covered by dandelion leaves", which describes the PH photo, but not so much what I brought home from Paffenroth's, though the leafy parts look plausibly similar. My brilliant deduction is that I got baby puntarelle.

(Incidentally, I found my new mission in life on the RRP site. I must find and consume Radicchio di Castelfranco.



Seriously, how gorgeous is that?)

Anyway, back to puntarelle, aka "Roman Wild Chicory", aaka "Remind Me Again Why I Don't Live in Rome"? As with most leafy greens, I thought a quick saute would tell the tale quickest. The bunch I got had small enough ribs I didn't bother to separate them from the leaves, I just put the lower pieces into the pan a couple of minutes before the top pieces. It didn't take long to cook, five, maybe seven minutes. I tried a piece--it was deliciously bitter, with a barely detectable sweet undertone. I tossed it with some sundried tomatoes, garlic, black pepper and Parmesan into some rice. The tomatoes brought out the sweetness while somehow highlighting the bitterness, and the garlic, pepper and cheese worked their usual magic.

Next I tried it in a quiche with mushrooms. Spectacular! I used Cook's Illustrated's new no fail pie crust, the one that uses vodka, and it was really easy to work with and turned out pretty perfect. Bonus: I got to play with my exciting new tart pan, which I now love a lot. The bitter puntarelle, earthy mushrooms, and creamy eggs were a menage a trois made in heaven.


You may notice my friend Carla, the professional photographer, came over and gave me a tutorial on my food pics. It's really amazing what having your camera on the right settings and screwing with the lights for over an hour will accomplish. THANKS CARLA!!!!

Everything I read about this stuff indicates that anchovy is its soul mate, so I hope to find it again, perhaps in its more mature state, and report back.

Merry Thanksgiving!

And a ginormous thanks to the folks over at Serious Eats, and D'Artagnan, for my big, beautiful FREE turkey!! I've never either a) won a contest in my life, or b) eaten an $80 turkey on Thanksgiving. Does that make it unfamiliar enough to count for entry on this blog? Ok, not really. But hey, they gave me a turkey. It's the least I can do to give them a shout out.




And it was a lovely bird. The first thing my friend Jason said when he walked in the door was, "Wow, nice bird. It looks fake." How sweet is that?

Celeriac: Not My Favorite

I hate to be judgemental. Generally if I don't care for a food item, I blame myself.

Which isn't too much of a burden as the only things I really can't bear are sweet potatoes and cantaloupe. Perfectly wonderful foodstuffs. High nutritional value. Low fat/ low calories / low whatever the bogeyman of the month is. Attractive color that contrasts nicely with leafy greens and beige-y starches. They're good guys. I respect them. But to me they smell like sickly sweet death room, and I can't bear to have them near my face. I try again about once a year on principal, but so far no progress.

And that brings us to today's item: celeriac, aka celery root.

My photographic attempts were unpublishable, but you can see it in all its copyrighted loveliness by clicking here.

I have to say I'm just not digging it. It tastes like celery. It acts like a fibrous potato. If you want mashed celery and gravy beside your turkey on Thanksgiving, help yourself. Hash browned celery with your eggs in the morning, it's all yours. I see it on lots of menus, and I'm sure great chefs can do great things with it, but I don't feel any burning curiosity to keep experimenting.

To end on a cheerier note, I've been playing with other things that I like enormously, so more positive posts anon!

For Those of You Keeping Score

I am, obviously, SOOO out of the National Blog Posting Month thing. Failing to blog on the very first day of the month was not an auspicious beginning, and I've missed days since.

Good luck and Godspeed to the other participants, but I realized I had no real idea why I was participating. I thought it might be fun to network with other bloggers in the forums, but in reality if I could make time to kvetch there, I could make time to post every day. Or cook more experiments with the mystery ingredient. Or play with my dog.

I thought it might be more motivating. But for what did I need more motivation? I love my blog! I love selecting the ingredients. I love talking to farmers at the Greenmarket, and trying to talk to shopkeepers in Chinatown. I love cooking. I love the suspense of whether or not sort-of-picky Corey will deem my experiments successful. I even kind of love the agony of trying to take pictures of my food--insofar as it contributes to the deep satisfaction when I actually manage to capture a recognizable image.

I'm plenty motivated. I am, after all, Consumed. But I'm also consumed by other things that don't pertain to this blog, and I'm not going to beat myself up about my lack of quotidian posting. But the point is I fibbed to you, gentle reader, and I am sorry about that, even if I'm not sorry about failing to post every day.

In Case You Were Wondering. . . II

Cheddar cauliflower is named exclusively for its coloring. It also tastes just like the regular stuff.

And despite it's highly photogenic color contrast,

I didn't have a much easier time

getting a halfway decent photo of it

than the purple. Because I suck. You've seen the evidence. There's no denying it. Happily, my extremely talented friend Carla is going to come over later in the week and give me a private lesson on Lighting and Shooting Close Ups of Things That are Sitting Still.

I used to be a good student. Maybe this will help.

Fun New Feature

Check out the Foodie Blogroll in the right hand column. I haven't had a chance to peruse all the sights, but I've nosed around enough to know that there's a lot of good stuff to be found. Enjoy--then y'all come back!

Meanwhile, back at Spaghetti Squash . . .

Now that the spaghetti squash has been steamed and cooled off, it's starting to look more interesting.


Let's take a closer look, shall we?



The writhing nest of strands I expected upon opening the squash magically appear at the teasing of a fork, and only after the brute has been cooked. Now we're back to the fun!

I sampled a few strands and was pleased with the slightly al dente texture and (as that squashy/sweet potatoey flavor isn't my very favorite) the faint flavor of squash. If I had cooked it a few minutes less so the strands were crunchier, I think they would have made a fantastic base for a Thai style salad. I can't imagine how foul it would be topped with Ragu and green box cheese.

As it was, my first thought was "Hmm, it's almost the texture of shredded potatoes. Latkes!!" I sliced some onions paper thin and tossed them with the squash strands, one lightly beaten egg, and a pinch of salt. In the minute it took me to throw this together, I had some oil preheating in a pan over medium high heat. I dropped the mixture by the heaping spoonful into the oil and flattened it into patty shape with the back of the spoon. I would guess about 4 minutes per side, but using the "keep peeking till it's an appealing golden brown" method is all I can attest to. And voila!



They were . . . interesting. The never developed that crunchy crust you expect with a latke, and really came out more like a regular pancake than a potato pancake. The squash turned creamy, and even though the croquettes were about half an inch thick, the onion became so sweet that they were equally good eaten with a garlic pepper sauce and the aforementioned commercial maple syrup, of which we will never speak again. Weird, right?!

Corey actually consented to try a bite. He didn't make throw up noises, but I was shooting higher.

I used the rest of the squash in an 'interpretation' of quesadillas. I smeared a soft taco size flour tortilla with the garlic pepper sauce (sorry, this bottle doesn't have a website. You could use salsa, or whatever savory moist thing you like), put it face up on a griddle, spread spag squash strands evenly, added roasted tomato slices, topped with thinly slices of smoked Gouda, and capped the whole mess with another flour tortilla. Peek till golden, flip, peek, remove from heat, cut in quarters, consume. Repeat all. None of which I got a photo of, but they looked exactly like all other quesadillas ever.

Again Corey, my dear good sport, consented to a bite.

Then he finished the entire slice.

Then he voluntarily took and finished another slice.

Then he said "That was good."

By far this was the absolute height of my culinary non-career so far. And it gave me hope that perhaps, one day, I might breach his asparagus barricade.