A salad is whatever you want it to be

I'm not tremendously mobile right now, but I do try to get outside briefly every day. Today's walk was inspired by a recipe in Gourmet, and modified by Prague and pregnancy. I've posted my version of the recipe below:

Octopus Salad

The night before
Receive latest copy of Gourmet. Flip quickly past nearly all food in magazine due to its heavy meat and pasta orientation. Discover photo shoot of exceptionally beautiful octopus salad. Decide said salad is a nutritional necessity for sustaining life while pregnant. Eat several sticks of celery to compensate for saladless evening.

Day of salad
Contemplate octopus sources in Prague. Rule out nearby aquarium as too pacifist and fish store downtown as too far. Recall Greek deli nearby!

Slowly proceed toward deli. Soak up sun while walking. Since pace is so snail-like, notice an unvisited electronics store. Unnerve shop keeper by expressing interest in voltage meters.* Mollify his sensibilities by purchasing glue gun and glue sticks instead. Continue to Greek store.

Purchase marinated octopus and other essentials (greek yogurt with honey is an essential).

Return home, keeping on the sunny side.

Chop up octopus (save out one tentacle), add chopped bits to salad bowl.

Chop carrots, celery and parsley, add to salad. Pour a lemon’s worth of juice and the marinated oil from the octopus container over the salad. Stir and salt to taste.

Share tentacle with Caroline and babysitter when they return from playground. Give babysitter a mountain of credit for bravely smiling throughout taste test.

Encourage salad to marinate by itself until dinner, request Caroline follow salad's lead.

Serve salad with toasted pita bread, grape leaves, and eggplant spread.

Delicious. Nutritional crisis averted. Time for the yogurt!

.......................
*We have electronic issues in our flat that cause light bulbs to live short lives. I want to know why.

Hot Chocolate Choices

Drop two squares of 70% chocolate into the bottom of a mug of whole milk. Microwave mug for two and a half minutes. Add kahlua or amaretto for supreme tastiness. Stir. Enjoy. Best when made by other half as an evening treat.

But if you are not at home with ingredients before you, there are other options in town. The best hot chocolate I've tasted in Prague came from Pavilon Kavarna on Vinohradská. We wound up there by chance, when we found the cukarna (sweet shop) we'd picked for Caroline’s after recital celebration closed on a Sunday. The café’s coffee is good, their ice cream okay, their hot chocolate delicious. I ordered the double with a touch of Grand Marnier. It had a hefty price tag - 85 CZK/$4.85 - but it came in its own pot and served three cups worth. It met our hot chocolate recipe and raised it (steamed milk makes real hot chocolate sublime). A single, without Grand Marnier, cost 55 CZK/$3.15.

A few weekends ago we took Caroline ice skating at Hockey Hvezda, a typical Czech bunker-style ice rink used mostly by hockey players, but open to the public at random times during the week. I was banned from the rink for balance reasons, so I watched Caroline through the windows of the pub set conveniently close to the children’s corner. To pay for my spot, I ordered a hot chocolate. The pub owner finished topping up the beer from the order in front of me and then (to my astonishment) turned to an espresso machine and foamed steamed milk into a mug. He added a powder mix, but the steamed milk made it the tastiest powdered cocoa I remember. I paid my 25 CZK/$1.43, took mug in hand, and turned back to watching Caroline play chase across the ice with her friends. There are plenty of places to skate in town, but thanks to the cocoa, I'd go back anytime we can fit into their schedule and not fall asleep - weekends, the ice is open from 6 to 8:15 pm, and 11 to midnight.

Then today, after a business lunch, I persuaded my colleague to walk into the new Starbucks with me. It was my first trip (illnesses have abounded in our house since it opened, keeping me on our side of the river) and I knew he’d get a kick out of critiquing the design and layout. It is a beautiful space - an old coffee house with arched ceilings and small rooms still intact. But it feels oddly neutral, not quite a Starbucks, nor the café it used to be. A bag of beans costs more than 10 dollars. I passed it up and tried the hot chocolate. A tall cost 80 CZK/$4.70. It arrived lukewarm with whipped cream on top. I won't be trying the chocolate again, but I’ll give them another chance when I’m a bona fide coffee drinker again.

In the meantime, our microwave beckons.

Kavarna Pavilon - Vinohradská 50, Praha 2
Hockey Hvezda - Na rozdilu 1, Praha 6
Starbucks Prague - Malostranske nám. 28

Saturday morning, 6 am

Saturday, I woke at 6 and took the tram to Mala Strana, to watch the sun rise over the castle and see Charles Bridge without tourists. There was no one about except us....
and a bunch of photographers with their tripods at the ready.

After the sun rose, we headed to Old Town Square, to enjoy downtown free of the hordes. It was my first visit to the clock without a crowd pressed around, and so I took a few close ups. My favorite of the morning:

After the clock, the next step was breakfast. There was a crowd at the bakery. The service was surly, the coffee most welcome, and the sheep dogs most hairy.

Then I came home, just as Will and C were waking up. An excellent morning. 

Photos of fall

A few weeks ago, Nerd's Eye View sent me to a super recipe for plum dumplings over at Mausi. When my plum supply was replenished (it is the year of the plum, I'm told) we ate many many many until C was sick of the sight of them. When I came home from work one day, I found a plum dumpling surprise awaiting us, thanks to a long nap and a very kind babysitter! C had no problem eating these. We rolled them in breadcrumbs and powdered sugar and they were very good. But I still want to try the German recipe for comparison.

Our courtyard - the new Vermont for seasonal foilage tours?

Duck sounds so complicated

But it's not.

Sunday night I headed to the grocery store, list in hand to make a Czech-Mex dinner - chicken, tacos and salsa fresca. Will wanted to use up our taco shells and I thought it might be a good way to distract myself from thoughts of French food. When I got home though, I found that the chicken breasts I thought I’d bought had welded themselves together into one large duck breast, with bones. We nixed Mexican and decided to see what our cookbooks might recommend.

They didn’t. A duck complete was called for in all instances. Epicurious however, had several suggestions. And I finally found a use for the multitude of fennel seeds in our larder (in Prague, the spice sold as "cumin" is in fact fennel.* We have accidentally accumulated enough to season several potato fields).

Ingredients
1 duck breast, deboned (cooking shears make this an easy job)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp, fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tsp, fennel seeds, ground (caraway seeds work too)
2 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
cooking twine (finally found a use for the string that comes with Will’s favorite French sausages)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400F (200C)
Wash, dry, salt and pepper your duck. Place it on a plate, skin side down.
In a small bowl, combine garlic, rosemary and fennel with enough olive oil to make it all stick together. Rub seasoning into meat. Don’t be shy, really rub it in, your taste buds will thank you later.
Roll up duck, skin side out. Secure with string. Two seem to work.

Heat oven-proof skillet over medium high heat on the stove. When skillet is hot, add the duck roll. Brown for about 10 minutes, turning to make sure every side gets toasty looking. When nice and brown, pour off fat and pop skillet (and duck!) into hot oven. Roast for 15 minutes, turning duck every now and then. Remove from oven and let it sit for 10 minutes. Only then, snip off twine, unroll duck and slice. - Makes enough for 2 adults plus 1 slightly picky 3 year old.

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So incredibly simple. You don’t even need a sauce because duck is tremendously juicy and drippy (also why you don’t need to oil the skillet). Will licked his plate clean. I forgave the Czech grocery stores for not being in France, and when Caroline finished she said "ok, kde je moje pain au chocolat?" (Where is my chocolate croissant in Czechfrenchlish).

*Actually, the spice sold as cumin (kmín) is in fact caraway seed, as Dana quite rightly points out here. Will claims confusion and says he gets caraway and fennel mixed up in English too. Just to let you know, the caraway seeds tasted great with the duck.

The grapes of August

This season’s grapes have arrived, and the boxes outside the fruit and veggie stores all along our street are dripping with them. Walking home from work on Friday I saw the green and thought "the fox and the grapes", and imagined an illustration for Caroline’s room, and then my stomach rumbled and I abandoned foxes and remembered a chicken recipe my grandmother used to make. Epicurious came through as it usually does and miraculously so did our grocery store.

It was a delicious early fall dinner, just perfect for celebrating the grapes, looking forward to the new wine that is nearly ready to pour and enjoying a delicious Ryzlink from a few years ago.

Chicken and Grapes
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 whole chicken breast, halved and pounded flat
1 shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour (mouka hladka)
1/3 cup Riesling/Ryzlink
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (juice from 1 lemon)
1/8 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
1/4 pound green grapes, halved crosswise and seeded (about 3/4 cups)

For the instructions, check out the recipe at epicurious.

Recipes for my brother (Easy linguini)

Remember those college days when a dorm meal of ramen noodles, cottage cheese and salsa represented the height of your creative cooking? Then you graduated to an apartment and started making pasta in earnest, with real noodles, and sauce in a jar, maybe some slightly plasticky parmesan to sprinkle over everything.

I remember. I ate that meal at least three times a week for several years, interspersed with music recital food (honestly gained by attending the recitals) and dinner at fancy Nashville restaurants (courtesy of my dating circuit). I can’t stand spaghetti noodles any more, but we still eat pasta, and I keep finding new sauce recipes that are so tasty they must be tried again.

Here’s one from last night, modified from an epicurious recipe to match what I could find on the walk home from work yesterday. Modified also for my brother, who has just embarked on apartment living. Happy cooking Bro!

Linguini (it is so much tastier than spaghetti after all)
Red onions, chopped into bits (3), garlic works too (6 cloves)
Olive oil
Pancetta or English bacon or regular bacon (as you wish, but at least 4 slices)
Red pepper flakes (two good shakes)
Sun dried tomatoes in oil, cut into bits. (1/2 cup)
Cherry tomatoes halved or larger vine tomatoes, chopped (2 cups of cherry or 3 tomatoes)
Parmesan or Romano or Pecorino, grated (2 cups)
Salt to taste

Follow instructions on packet for linguini. Test when near done to keep that al dente taste. Don’t bother throwing pasta on the wall to test it, your teeth are much smarter than the wall. When done, pour into collander to drain water, then return drained pasta to pot.

Mix oil from sun dried tomatoes with olive oil, enough to cover the bottom of the frying pan. Heat on medium until hot, but not smoking. If it smokes, carefully throw oil away and start again. Add onion bits. Cook for longer than you think, until they are soft and nearly translucent. Add pancetta or bacon, saute (stir but not incessantly) for 4 minutes or until starting to crisp.
Add tomatoes of both sorts, saute for 4 minutes.

Pour frying pan contents into drained linguini. Stir together. Add most of cheese to pot, stir to coat the linguini. Salt to taste. Serve, then sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Consider adding basil if you’ve got it growing on your patio.

If you don’t have the red pepper flakes or dried tomatoes, no worries, it works anyway.

Green green green, unless you are asparagi

Everything is turning green green green outside my office window. Even the spindly birch growing from the roof of the decayed atelier next door has draped itself with festoons of pollen, like a May Day pole wreathed in one color ribbon. From one day to the next I can see the leaves unfurling on all the trees, shading from yellowish green to darker as they absorb the sun. Photosynthesis at play.

But other signs of spring, untouched by sun, have arrived in town. White asparagus is back on restaurant menus and on ours too. Last night Will made a detour on his way home from work to run by the green grocers near by. He was going to pick up some strawberries but the asparagus changed his mind so he arrived home with a bag full. Luckily we had eggs, the near rind of a parmesan chunk and some prosciutto left over from Easter. Our first dinner on the balcony this year turned nearly gourmet thanks to the leftovers and asparagus. Here is the recipe:

Prosciutto or ham slices
Eggs
Asparagus
Parmesan, sliced or grated
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400F/200C

Fry the prosciutto or ham slices in a pan until crisp. When done, remove from heat and arrange on plates.

Trim asparagus of woody parts (not the tips!) and if still a bit stiff, use scraper to remove excess skin (bark?). Toss with olive oil. Assemble on cooking sheet. When oven is hot, place sheet in oven and cook for 10-12 minutes, or until roasted. Top with parmesan and place back in oven until melted (3-5 minutes). When done, arrange on plates.

Boil two inches of water in large pot. When water is simmering, crack shells and drop eggs into pot. Let cook three minutes or until whites are set. Using slotted spoon remove from pot, arrange on top of asparagus.

Salt and pepper to taste.

That’s it. So easy and good. Best of all, it took 2 minutes to clean up! Happy Spring.

Turkey time: the bird arrived early this year

Since we’re going to be hosting Christmas in a month, Will and I decided to start laying in provisions, and practicing a few of the bigger meals. Last week I ordered a turkey from our local butcher, and Saturday afternoon we got down to the business of cooking it. Besides the usual grossness of having to handle a very large carcass, and the less usual - sawing its very long neck off, plucking out forgotten feathers, and tying its legs into compromising positions to fit our European-sized oven - the process turned out to be easier than we thought it would be, and the turkey tastier. I give most of the credit to the turkey (who was alive on Thursday and never frozen) and to the butter that we massaged under its skin, and then basted with at each hour.

Here's the turkey recipe, in case anyone is wondering. A nice and easy way to cook a bird, but we can't recommend the gravy.

Filed under: holidays turkey cooking