Panzanella

Last Saturday was this absolutely beautiful day. The kind of day when you spring out of bed and think, "I'm going to go to the farmer's market carrying my eco-tote and wearing my $700.00 dollar sandals and I'll walk home with a bunch of flowers and a baguette sticking picturesquely out of the bag and then come home to my charmingly rustic apartment and whip up some wonderful summer dish that is easy, with simple flavors, which I will then enjoy whilst sitting next to my flowers (which I just stuck in a blue enameled milk pitcher) and reading the New York Review of Books."

Needless to say, I don't have $700.00 sandals, so the whole plan was a bust. And I didn't make it down to the farmer's market but instead down to the sort of half-assed version we have next to the Kip's Bay movie theater. And when I got back to my apartment, it looked like several rhesus monkeys had been holding soccer tryouts there the night before. So I just shoved all my tomatoes in the fridge and resumed my life of lowered expectations.

But tonight I figured I'd better eat them, and so made this, which I love because it's basically a deconstructed sandwich. Or deconstructed brucchetta. It's the kind of dish that is completely uninterested in your blue enameled pitcher. It has no time to be faux rustic. It's too busy being bread salad.



Panzenella

1 loaf crusty bread
5 ripe tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 tablespoon capers
1 cup of basil leaves
Good olive oil
Red wine vinegar

Preheat oven to 250F. Cut about six pieces of bread in 1" thick slices. Place on a baking sheet and bake for around 20 minutes, until lightly crispy. You could also just use stale bread, which I have a feeling was the original ingredient.

Chop your tomatoes into chunks and put into a bowl. Mince garlic clove and add to tomatoes. Rinse capers if they're salted, and then mince and add to tomatoes. (I always mince my capers. I guess you don't have to.)



Tear your basil leaves into shreds and add to tomatoes. Sprinkle all with a hefty pinch of salt, a good grind or six of pepper, stir, and let sit for around twenty minutes, just to let the flavors blend.


Combine olive oil and red wine vinegar in a small bowl, whisk together (I don't know how much, but roughly 4-1 oil to vinegar) and pour over tomatoes. Don't drown it; there should be a lot of good juice from the tomatoes already on the bottom of the bowl. Cut your bread slices into cubes. Gently mix the cubes of bread into the salad.

This does NOT keep. In fact, this barely lasts an hour. Of course, there isn't any point in making it if you don't have really, really good tomatoes, which, even if you do not have, as I do not, $700.00 sandals, a blue enameled pitcher, a subscription to the New York Review of Books (thank god) and a charmingly rustic apartment, are readily available at a stand outside a movie theater on 2nd Avenue every Saturday until the first frost.

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Chicken Liver Pate

Who doesn't love a good pate? This one is super easy to make, tasty and uses Mace -- now, there's an under-utilised spice! The resulting pate is smooth and velvety, freezes well and will be ever so popular at picnics should the rain ever end.

Thanks to Delia Smith for this recipe. For those of you State-side, Delia is to the UK what Julia was to the US.

8oz chicken livers (225g)
6oz unsalted butter, room temperature (175g)
(Note, the original recipe doesn't state to use unsalted. I've tried the recipe using salted and unsalted, and prefer the results using unsalted.)
2 extra oz unsalted butter, for melting (50g)
2 tbsp brandy (NOT optional!)
2 tsp mustard powder (I use Colman's English Mustard)
1/4 tsp powdered mace
1 tsp fresh chopped thyme, or 1/4 tsp dries thyme
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Salt and black pepper

Melt about 1oz (25g) of butter in a heavy frying pan and saute the chicken livers over medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring all the time. Using a slotted spoon remove them from the pan and transfer them to a blender.

Melt the rest of the 6oz (175g) butter and add this to the blender. Deglaze the pan with the brandy then add to blender. Then add the mustard, mace, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper and blend until you have a smooth paste. Note: At this point, the paste may look a little runny, but not to worry as it will set in the fridge over night.

Next, pour the mixture into one large or a series of small containers. Pour the 2oz (50g) of melted butter over, leave to cool, cover with foil or cling film (plastic wrap) and put it in the bottom of the fridge for a day or two to set. Serve with hot toast or crackers and some cornichons. Very tasty.

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Chicken Shawarma Sandwich

A few years ago, when I was first figuring out how to make this, I couldn't find anything until I realized that it isn't spelled "schwarma." Pity. That's much more fun to type.

Mini and I had a conversation while we were endlessly pitting cherries last weekend where she asked me if I ever used allspice. And I slapped her for being so forward. Just kidding. But we were trying to think what else, aside from chunking it into spice cakes, it could go with. And after she left, I thought "Oh yeah. Chicken."



This feeds two.

1 pack of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. (Or breasts. Thighs is traditional, though.)
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
chopped lettuce (pick whatever. I don't know from lettuce.)

Marinade:
1 thing of plain yogurt
big splash of apple cider vinegar
1 clove garlic, peeled and smacked with knife a few times
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tablespoon allspice

Tahini sauce:
1/4 cup tahini paste
juice of 1/2 lemon (maybe a bit less)
1 clove of garlic, peeled and smacked once with a knife
1/4 tsp salt to start and go from there
2-3 tablespoons of yogurt

Other:
Pita bread or naan
Harissa or other hot sauce
Dill pickles

Mix ingredients for marinade in a bowl or glass baking dish.

Slice chicken into stripes. Put in marinade and stir to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Chop up your tomato, cucumber and lettuce and set aside.

Make the tahini sauce. You will spend at least fifteen minutes, if not more, combining the solid paste on the bottom of the tin with the oil floating on top. It's like the natural peanut butter from hell. You will get it eventually, but seriously? It takes a while. Sadly, it is necessary: It should be smooth enough to move with a whisk.

Add lemon juice and keep whisking. It will start to kind of seize up, but keep going and it should begin to take on a lighter color and creamier texture. Drop in your garlic clove and crush against the side of the bowl with a spoon until its well smashed up, then stir it in. Add salt. Add a tablespoon of yogurt and stir. Taste and adjust everything. If need be, keep adding yogurt until you get to a nice drizzling consistency.

Heat a little olive oil in a —actually, if you have a grill, grill the chicken pieces. Otherwise, use a cast iron skillet. Take the chicken from the marinade, shake off the excess, and cook over medium-high heat until done.


If you can find it, there a traditional type of thin pita break that you can roll these guys up in. Or you can use regular pita bread and stuff the pockets, but you're fairly guaranteed of leakage and breakage if you use those Thomas' ones. I like them open-faced on heated naan, because I loves me my naan.

Anyway, combine the tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and chicken (and sliced dill pickles, and hot peppers, and chopped onion, etc.) in your bread vehicle of choice. Top with tahini and, if you're so inclined, a few shots of harissa.

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