Caesar Salad ala Janina

Croutons:
One small loaf of crusty bread cut into 1" cubes. Toss with olive oil and toast for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with kosher (or sea) salt.

Lettuce:
One large head of Romaine lettuce. (Do not use packaged lettuce ... it often has an aftertaste.) Trimmed of darkest leaf ends, washed well and spun dry. Chop into bite sized pieces.

Dressing:
       1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
       2 tablespoons good mayonnaise
       1 teaspoon anchovy paste (if not using chopped up anchovies)
       1/2 cup good olive oil
       2 dashes of Tabasco sauce
       1 crushed large garlic clove
       1 tablespoon salt

Parmesan cheese:
       Grate a good half cup of fresh good real Parmesan cheese

Dress the lettuce with about half the dressing and cheese (and, if desired, 3 or 4 chopped-up anchovies). Just before serving add more dressing, cheese, and croutons. Toss well.

Bon Appetit!

You Devil You

I love deviled eggs, but the rest of my family doesn’t. So, as a consequence, if I make a batch, I have to eat them all … no problem. I guess I relish them so much because they remind me of my childhood picnics … and I also enjoy their taste and convenience. So here is my take on them.

First the eggs … place six eggs in a pot of cold water to cover. Bring this water up to a rolling boil and then turn off the heat. Let stand and cool in this water for at least 15 minutes. Then run cold water in the pot, cracking the eggs on the side so that some of the cold water gets inside the shells. This should make the job of peeling the eggs a breeze … and also keep the yolks from forming a green ring. Now cut the eggs in two longitudinally and ease out the yolks into a separate bowl … placing the 12 half eggs on a serving plate. Mash the yolks well with a fork and add:

- two well-minced shallots
- a tablespoon of good Dijon mustard
- a heaping tablespoon of Hellmann’s mayonnaise
- a tablespoon of chopped capers
- a big pinch of salt
- five grinds of fresh pepper
- a few squirts of Tabasco sauce (optional, but they are called “deviled” eggs)
- a tablespoon of sweet pickle relish (optional)
- a teaspoon of well-chopped parsley (optional)

Now mix well, taste for seasoning, and spoon into the yolk craters in the egg whites. (There is no need to use a pastry bag for this process unless you double or triple this recipe.) Finally, sprinkle some paprika on top and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Pop them in your mouth in between bites of crispy fried chicken.

Gazpacho

When the farm stands are full of large ripe tomatoes (and their price is beginning to come back down to earth), this is the time for gazpacho soup. I can make a few quarts of it and, as my wife will surely testify, eat the entire batch myself. In fact, I will sometimes sneak out of bed late at night to raid the refrigerator’s last few bowls of it … climbing back under the sheets reeking of garlic.

Gazpacho is a fairly simple and flexible recipe. Start by peeling, coring, and chopping about five large, dead-ripe tomatoes. Put them in a large stainless steel bowl. You may de-seed them or not depending on your taste. (I don’t.) Next peel, de-seed (I do), and chop two large cucumbers. Add them to the bowl. Then de-seed and chop two large Italian peppers … add them. If you can’t find Italian peppers, use Bell peppers, but be sure to peel them first. Clean and chop a large Bermuda (preferred), Vidalia, or red onion. Add it. Then mince at least five large garlic cloves and add them. Finally, include a handful of fresh chopped Italian parsley. (At this point you might save a good cupful of these chopped vegetables to add as a garnish to the top of the served soup.  I usually don't however.) 

Then, process all these vegetables in a blender until just a little chunky, adding some V8 juice, if necessary, to get the blending going … placing the results in a large, pretty serving bowl. You’re almost done but for a few more steps: Add a large handful of fresh Italian bread crumbs, the juice of one large lemon, a tablespoon of good wine (or Balsamic) vinegar, about a quarter cup of extra-virgin olive oil, a palm-full of kosher salt, five turns of a pepper mill, and about ten good squirts of Tabasco sauce. If the result is too thick, add some more V8 juice until it is the consistence you desire. Mix thoroughly and refrigerate, covered, overnight. If you don’t cover this, everything else in there will pick up a garlic flavor.

Serve well chilled (with garnishes, if desired) as a first course for about six people (or just one, me.)

Ham It Up

Ham, to me, is a production in three acts: baked ham, ham salad, and split-pea soup with ham. Generally every Easter we have ham and I follow the following ritual with a certain compulsive slavishness:

Baked Ham – first make sure that you have a real ham, no boneless varieties, none of those “modern” hams with a cuticle of some sort of plastic coating (ugh!), no ham overly plumped up with a saline or nitrate solution, and, preferably, not a spiral-sliced one (the front slices always dry out when it is baked). And if you must use a country ham (not recommended), make it a sugar-cured one and not a salt-cured one. I am talking about a real old-fashioned smoked ham with all its bones, a nice coating of pork fat and as little skin as possible. Now bake it according to the directions on the label. About a half-hour before it is done, baste it with a glaze made as follows: place ½ cup of dark brown sugar in a sauce pan with ½ cup of orange juice and ½ teaspoon of ground cloves (takes the place of whole cloves stuck in the ham, but you can do it the other way it you must). Stir and simmer this mixture until it is about the consistency of honey. Cover as much of the baked ham as possible with this mixture and return it to the oven, continually basting it with any glaze that slides off. Serve with whatever is traditional in your household (how about some real home-baked beans, escalloped potatoes, and a tossed green salad?)

Ham Salad – the next day, after you have had your fill of ham and Swiss cheese sandwiches or Blodgets  (see earlier recipe), take the majority of the remaining ham meat from the bone (with its fat, but not its skin – at least two good handfuls) and put it through a meat grinder (not a food processor) alternating it with the contents of a jar of sweet gherkin pickles. Into this salad base add at least two heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise and a little bit of the pickle juice. Mix well and serve either on some lettuce as a scoop of salad (even better, also add a scoop of tuna salad and some Thousand Island dressing), on a sandwich, or as hors d'oeuvres  on some nice crackers.

Split-pea Soup with Ham – dice two ribs of celery (avec leaves is better), one medium onion, and three large cleaned carrots and sauté them in some good olive oil until transparent. Rinse well in a colander one package of picked-over, dried split-peas (I like the green ones, but you can use yellow) and add to the vegetables with a large pinch of salt. Immediately add about three quarts of water, three bay leaves, five whole allspice, and seven whole peppercorns. Then slip in the ham bone with as much meat remaining as you favor. Cover and simmer for at least four hours until the ham meat is falling off the bones. Turn off the heat and let cool until you can safely handle the ham bone. Remove it and pull the ham meat from the bones and discard all the bones. For those with an old-fashioned pallet, you might also save some of the softened gristle. Chop up and put this meat (and gristle) back in the soup, adding more water if it seems necessary. Remove the bay leaves and add about ten squirts of red Tabasco sauce. Reheat briefly and stir well. Eat some of this soup now with some crusty French bread and butter, but it is even better the next day. The soup might appear a little thin now, but, trust me, it will thicken up over night in the refrigerator. The next day, ask over your best friends, heat and devour what’s left.

Applause for the emoter.  Curtain …