Eight-Vegetable Mac-n-Cheese

So the CC posted on his Instagram a suitably random post about how even vegetable-hating kids love the CC's mac-n-cheese. Lo, to his surprise, there was an inundation of requests for the recipe.

The recipe will be provided but since chez CC we tend to be of analytic bent, let's back up a little and ask ourselves a few questions.

Why is what the CC doing working for kids?

Why exactly?

Here are the claims:

[1] Kids are irrational.
[2] Kids won't eat anything green.
[3] Kids hate vegetables.

These are empirical observations that can be backed up in spades. The CC is not going to contest these observations and concerns. They seem to be real.

They are also demonstrably false as the CC's recipe would contest. After all, the CC is working empirically in the real world against a real set of kids and it's working great!

So let's back up one more time and ask why is this even happening?

Why?

There are two plausible answers - one evolutionary and one cultural.

Evolutionarily, all bitter flavors are banned. There's a very good reason for this. Bitter flavors generally speaking correspond to alkaloid poisons. It takes a very sophisticated palate to start appreciating bitter flavors in vegetables — okra, eggplants, broccoli, kale, spinach, brussels sprouts — even beer and wine!

Culturally, basically kids will eat whatever you shove in their face. Shove enough spicy food slowly amped up and they will learn an appreciation for spicy flavors. Shove bland food in their face and they'll only eat chicken nuggets.

So now we're ready to proceed — kids will eat complex flavors as long as you keep the vegetables on the "sweeter" side and the flavors "familiar".

Both of these words are basically garbage - "sweeter" is all relative - if you roast brussels sprouts properly, they'll turn "sweet" and of course, and as the Greeks might've told you in 3rd century BCE, all of "familiarity" is in the eye of the beholder.

So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's proceed.

What we're gonna do is pick vegetables that kids perceive (falsely) as sweet and we're gonna cut them into small enough pieces so that they don't stand out (very chef-like) and we're gonna go back to the two classical evolutionary devices — carbohydates and fats.

We're also going to the use full panoply of French and Italian classical cooking devices to make a superior meal — yes, that means understanding bechamél and sauce Mornay. Escoffier to the rescue!

Hey, think of the kids!!!

You wouldn't expect otherwise with the CC and yet, not so hard. Also, it's eminently available for assembly ahead of time. Just pop it in the oven later.

Ingredients

(serves 6)

2 cups macaroni

2 tbsp butter (no substitutions!)
4 cups whole milk (no substitutions!)
4 tbsp flour

2 cups gruyère
2 cups parmigiano-reggiano

1 large zucchini (diced)
1 large carrot (diced)
1 cup french beans (diced)
1 cup broad beans (slivered)
1 cup fava beans
1 cup peas
1 cup cauliflower florets (cut as small as realistic)
1 cup celery (skin shaved and then diced - skin shaving is not optional!)

fresh rosemary/sage (slivered finely - optional)

salt
pepper

panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)

Recipe

Cook the macaroni in heavily salted water until done. Depends on your brand. Roughly 12 minutes.

Make the bechamél. Heat the butter in a pan. Add the flour and let it "cook" until it is golden. Immediately add the milk. Let it cook completely till it thickens.

(What is really happening is that the milk proteins are denaturing.)

Add the salt and pepper. Add the rosemary/sage (optional.) Taste and adjust. Don't forget the cheese will add extra salt.

Toss in the vegetables one at a time in the order of "hardness" - first the carrots, then the french beans and broad beans, then the fava beans, then the cauliflower and zucchini and celery - finally the peas.

Add the cheese to turn the bechamél into what is technically called sauce Mornay — you can do it at the same time as adding the macaroni. Toss it all together.

Layer in a baking dish. sprinkle heavily with the panko breadcrumbs all over.

The next step depends on your baking dish.

If you have a shallow baking dish, preheat your oven to 350° F. If it's deep (like the CC's), preheat to 400° F.

Cook the dish covered for 25 minutes. Cook uncovered so that the surface crisps for about 10-15 minutes. Check towards the end because there's a tendency of burning.

Serve with a crisp salad (for the adults).

Sopa de elote y calabazín

Mexican chefs think of soup as an all-purpose instrument not just a winter thing. In fact, in the dog days of summer when nobody feels like eating, soups work better than heavier meals.

This dish is only going to work at the height of summer when corn and zucchini are at their very best.  It relies on the very best of ingredients and the chicken broth must be homemade not store bought.

Epazote is an herb that divides. It has a stinky smell analogous to asafoetida but once you love it, you won't be able to live without it. It is claimed to have the same anti-flatulent effect as asafoetida and it's heavily used with beans, corn, and most interestingly, zucchini!

This dish is complexly spiced in that Mexican way with chili peppers but it's emphatically not hot. It's very mild and soothing and absolutely phenomenal in this summer heat.

Ingredients

6 ears of corn (stripped into kernels)
2 small zucchini (diced into even cubes)

1 large onion (diced)

3 sprigs epazote

3 cups chicken broth (substitute by water)
3 cups water

salt
pepper

1 ancho chili
1 guajillo chili

"neutral" oil

1 lime quartered (to serve)
queso fresco (to serve)
crushed ancho chili (to serve)

Note 1: Since this is a summer dish, there were magnificent fresh onions in the market. This dish is a marvel with them. Use both the white parts and the green parts.

Note 2: Do not ignore the lime. This dish will not come "alive" until you squeeze it all over the soup.

Note 3: The reason to dilute the chicken broth is to make sure that the primary flavor is corn. In Mexico, they probably would go with straight chicken broth. However, the CC thinks that this tastes better.

Recipe

First roast the two chilis on a dried skillet until they are puffed and mildly charred on both sides. Let them cool. Slit them apart and remove the seeds and the stem. Set aside.

In a large pot, heat up some oil and toss in the onions and let them fry for 5 minutes at a medium-low heat. Toss in the chilis and the corn and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add the salt and pepper.

Add the epazote and the broth and water. Bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

Pull the sprigs of epazote out. Don't worry too much if a few leaves fall off. That's part of the flavor.

With a hand-blender, blend the soup as fine as possible. You have two choices at this point. Strain the soup for an elegant product or leave it rustic.

The soup should take on a rust color because of the chili peppers.

Back in the pot, bring the mixture to a boil and add the diced zucchini and cook for about 8 minutes till they are cooked through.

Serve with the lime, the crumbled queso fresco and sprinkles of the crushed ancho chili.

Lasagna with Cod & Zucchini

There is no sugar coating this one. This recipe is "heavy".

It's absolutely rock-solid and amazing but the CC only recommends making this if you have like 8+ guests who are dining. Seriously. We're talking small portions because of the sheer heft of this recipe.

This recipe is great for making ahead of time. When your guests arrive, just pop it in the oven and let it bake while you enjoy a nice de-stressing cocktail. It also really helps if you've made the tomato sauce ahead of time.

It's heavy on the prepping time and the oven time so you might want to make it in the waning days of summer when the ingredients are in copious supply and it's not so hot that you want to kill yourself.

Now that the negative juju's are out of the way, this recipe is killer. And heavy. And a heavy-killer!

So onwards and upwards.

There are just five components here all easily available or made in summer — cod, zucchini, tomato sauce, béchamel, and herbs. The CC will not judge you if you use commercial lasagna sheets. In fact, they might even be preferable since it's summer and this is not a delicate dish.

The steps are classically Italian. Waste not, want not. Each step goes back into the previous step to enhance the dish and waste nothing of the flavors acquired so far.

Why not step back right now and try and guess the recipe like a crossword puzzle?



Ingredients

package of lasagna sheets

1 large piece of cod
3 zucchini (cut into large rounds)

4 cups tomato sauce
fresh herbs - rosemary, thyme, oregano

1 cup milk
4 anchovies
1/2 cup flour

2 cups parmigiano-reggiano

butter
olive oil

salt
black pepper

Recipe

Take 1/4 cup of the tomato sauce and add water and bring to a boil. Poach the cod in it till medium done and lift out. Flake the flesh in a bowl and separately strain the broth. Discard the solids and reserve the broth.

Meanwhile reheat the tomato sauce with the fresh herbs. Set aside. It should be thick and glossy so that you can layer it with the lasagna.

Heat up some olive oil in a pan and fry the zucchini. Do it in batches until they are limp and have given up most of their moisture. This is important. If you do not do this, you will have a very soggy lasagna. You can bake it but it's simply not the same. Set aside.

Make the béchamel sauce. Pre-heat the milk in a pan. A microwave works great here. Heat up some butter in a pot. When bubbling, add the flour and let it fry at a medium heat until it is golden in color but not dark brown. Add the anchovies and let it fry a little. Add the hot milk and stir. When the milk is fully denatured, add the fish broth from the cod above and let it reduce to a thick sauce. (If you add it earlier, the milk will curdle.)

Assemble the lasagna. Grease the dish. Add the sheets to the bottom. Layer it with the zucchini, the flaked cod, topped with the béchamel; then more sheets; then with the tomato sauce; then more sheets. Keep repeating the layers until you use up everything. Top with some tomato sauce and the cheese.

Bake covered in a 400°F for 20-25 minutes and then uncover. Bake for an additional 10 minutes till the top is browned.

Early Summer Zucchini-fest

Zucchini ribbon salad with radish, cherry-tomatoes, & pine nuts on a bed of shaved beets (rosemary & sage vinaigrette) ♦ Zucchini Soup with spring onions, white beans & beet greens ♦ Zucchini Gratin with thyme & Greek basil — Sautéed fiddlehead ferns

Flavor Infusion

Have you ever had a watery soup with only one or two ingredients that was absolutely delicious? Did you ever wonder how they managed to get it infused with so much flavor? Did you suspect them of using broth?

You'd be wrong.

It is possible to bring out a vast array of flavors from just a few vegetables and water but you need to know a few tricks first.

The Italians call the technique insaporire – to infuse with flavor.

The first and the hardest part is that you cannot hurry the process. Time is the secret to success here.

The second is that you need to actually drop the vegetables in the "correct" order. The order is actually based on water content something that you will not learn from an Italian nonna's, who know these things instinctively, but since you and the CC aren't of a certain age yet, we resort to science.

The vegetables must be fried in order of least water content to most water content. Onions, leeks, garlic come first, followed by root vegetables like carrot and potato, followed by celery, followed by cooked beans, followed by mushrooms and leafy vegetables come last.

The last part is that you actually need to fry the leafy vegetables not just cook them. They have a ton of water so they need to be both blanched and wrung dry. (The broth can be preserved and added back to the soup when the time of frying is over.)

This really really matters. You cannot hurry the process nor short-circuit it.

What is really happening here?

When you fry vegetables languidly at a medium-low heat, you are basically allowing Maestro Maillard to work his magic.

When you add the water, you are just transferring the rich flavor from the surface of the vegetables to the broth. It allows you to interleave two steps into one and more importantly, do it in an economic manner – something that has always been important in the kitchen.

There are generalizations on this technique. You could use a ton of vegetables. That's what a minestrone really is. Or you could add greens. Or bung in an anchovy. Or a little diced pork. Or some raw shrimp right before serving.

However, the technique of slow frying to build the flavor remains the same.

Let's showcase this with a classic summer recipe.

Ingredients

2 leeks or spring onions (thinly sliced)
1 zucchini (sliced into half-moons)
1/2 cup white beans

2 sprigs rosemary
1 sprig sage

sea salt
black pepper

1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Cook the beans with 1 sprig of rosemary and some sea salt. Drain and set aside.

In a medium vessel, heat up some olive oil. When it shimmers, add the leeks and turn the heat to medium-low. Let it cook languidly for at least 10 minutes. Make sure they don't brown. Add the black pepper.

Add the zucchini and let it cook languidly for at least 10 minutes till the zucchini is limp but not falling apart. It may be browned in places which is fine.

Add the beans and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Add the water and bring to a boil. Serve at once topped with the parmigiano-reggiano and additional black pepper. Crusty bread works its charm here.

Zucchini Burgers

These babies never go out of style!


Recipe link.

Summer Haul

Sorrel, garlic scapes, chives, zucchini, eggs.

Summer is here!!!

Summer Risotto

This is a glorious farewell-to-summer treat.

At the farmers' market, the tomatoes were glorious but nobody wanted any because "summer was over" - well, it's not - the CC is still blasting fans and the occasional air-conditioning. That's the problem with going by dates rather than weather. Things are not always quite so.

Anyway, a crazy number of tomatoes were bought, and logic necessitated that a last ta-ta to summer was in order.

This is riot of colors (as you can see below.) Oddly enough, it also happens to follow the traditional rules of the Japanese washoku.


Ingredients

6 pounds ripe summer tomatoes (yep! you heard that right)

1 small yellow squash
1 small zucchini

1 ear corn (if available.)
1 cup peas (freshly shelled)

1/4 cup green beans (cut into medium length)
1/4 cup purple beans (cut into medium length)
1/4 cup yellow beans (cut into medium length)
1/4 cup Italian flat beans (cut to resemble the above)

1 large red onion (diced very fine)
4 cloves garlic (diced very fine)
2 cups arborio rice (or carnaroli.)
purple basil (lots!!!, shredded by hand or snipped with scissors)

3 cups excellent white wine (1 cup for recipe, 2 cups to drink)

olive oil
salt
pepper
1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Bring a pot of water to boil. Dunk the tomatoes in batches for about 8 minutes each (depending on ripeness.) Pass the lot through a food mill to get a rich broth of tomatoes. You should have about 8-12 cups of tomato broth. (This is work. Deal!)

Bring the tomato broth to a slow boil. A lot of foam will rise to the surface. Skim, baby, skim.

Reduce the broth for about 45-60 minutes until it is "sticky" (Logic: this is the Maillard reaction with some caramelization taking place.) This is the "hard" part but since, it quite literally requires no work, it cannot really be called that.

Reconstitute with water to bring it back up to the original 8 cups.

Now, we prepare a standard risotto.

On a seperate burner, keep the above tomato broth at a low simmer. It doesn't have to literally simmer just that it needs to be on the hot side so as to not drop the temperature of the risotto when you dunk a ladleful in.

Fry the onions and the garlic at a medium-low heat for about 6 minutes. Add the beans, and fry for an additional 4 minutes. Add the zucchini and yellow squash and fry for an additional 4 minutes. Add the rice and fry till the rice is translucent and the kernel of the rice is visible (this is really obvious if you actually make this recipe as opposed to just reading this post.)

Add salt and pepper to taste. At this point, the CC adds a cup of white wine he's been drinking (read below!)

Add two ladles of the hot tomato broth, and stir. Keep stirring while it cooks. You are releasing the starch in this process. Ladles of broth and stir, ladles of broth and stir. Yes, this is fuckin' boring but deal with it. Have the afore-mentioned white wine.

Towards the end, add the corn and the peas (Logic: they cook really quickly, and you don't want them to turn into mush.)

Turn off the heat.

Add the grated parmigiano-reggiano (the mantecura), and the purple basil. Serve immediately with lots of black pepper.

Zucchini Burgers

The trick to getting moist succulent burgers (irrespective of whether it's beef or zucchini burgers) is to keep them moist and handle them as little as possible.

Under no circumstance should you "press" them. Whenever the CC sees someone press down on a burger on a grill with a spatula, he wants to go postal on their ass. They are squeezing the flavor out of the burger!

Zucchini Burgers

Zucchini Gratin with Tomato and Marjoram

It's a little late in the season for zucchini but New York has been having unseasonably warm weather (at least when the article was written), and the CC found excellent zucchini at the farmers' market.

When asked about the presence of such zucchini, the farmer merely grunted, "Greenhouse."

A few days later when the CC was trying to scramble up something to eat, he thought about making one of the usual zucchini dishes but then he decided to consult Marcella Hazan on a whim.

And lo and behold, she rode to the rescue as she is always wont to.

You need to make a tomato sauce for this but just this once as luck would have it, the CC had some leftover in the fridge (from a completely disastrous culinary attempt which will not be revealed.)

What the CC adores about Marcella is that her recipes always succeed. She should be beatified.

Ingredients

2 large zucchini
1 tbsp garlic

1 cup tomato sauce
1/4 tsp marjoram
4 tbsp Italian parsley (finely chopped)

parmigiano-reggiano (very coarsely grated)

olive oil
black pepper

breadcrumbs

Recipe

The trick here is simple. You first fry the garlic and the zucchini to get the Maillard going. Cook until they are slightly limp. Take them off the heat.

Mix the tomato sauce with the marjoram, parsley, and plenty of black pepper.

Then, layer zucchini/sauce/cheese/zucchini/cheese/breadcrumbs in a oven-proof gratin dish.

Please note that the garlic doesn't show up in the final dish although a slight memory of its taste certainly does.

Bake at 400°F uncovered for 15-20 mins.

Zucchini Gratin

Zucchini, Onion and Rosemary Frittata

The basics of a frittata are explained here.

The recipe is obvious so here's a picture instead:

Zucchini and Rosemary Risotto

This is truly the last of the zucchini before summer fades. They are all tiny because they need to be harvested before they spoil.

This recipe is a bit of work because you have to do everything twice but the results are just too too delicious.


Ingredients

3 large red onions (separate into 2 + 1)
8 zucchinis (6 + 2)
6 rosemary sprigs (5 + 1)

2 cups carnaroli (or vialone nano)

broth (homemade obviously)
sea salt
black pepper

parmigiano-reggiano (grated)

Recipe

Part 1

Cut 2 red onions into semi-circles. Chop the 6 zucchini coarsely. Separate the rosemary from the 5 twigs.

(No need to get fancy here. It's all going in a blender.)

Fry the onions in olive oil languidly. This will take the better part of 8 minutes. Add the zucchini, and fry for a bit. Do not hurry this step! This is crucial to success. This will also take the better part of 10 minutes. Finally, add the rosemary, sea salt and black pepper. Fry for a bit. Add water (or broth), and let it cook until the zucchini has softened and is edible.

Dump the melange into a blender and blend till puréed.

Then, pass the whole thing through a fine tamis.

Yes, this last step is totally necessary.

Part 2

Dice the other onion. Dice the other 2 zucchinis into cubes.

Standard procedure for risotto. You need the broth simmering at a low heat.

Fry the onions; fry the rice. Add the zucchini paste (above) and boiling broth alternately so the temperature doesn't drop. Also, the sea salt and pepper. Add the rosemary and zucchini towards the end. The zucchini will cook quickly because of its small size.

Finally, the mantecura with the grated parm.

A Farewell to Summer

A lovely and fitting end to summer.

Rustic or elegant, you have a taste of pure zucchini. A last high note to bid farewell.

Zucchini Soup

Ingredients

2 large red onions (diced)
2 cloves garlic

2 zucchinis (cut into rounds)
2 yellow summer squach (cut into rounds)

1 zucchini (diced)
1 summer squash (diced)

1 large sprig basil

sea salt
black pepper

To serve:

dried bread slices
parmigiano-reggiano (grated)
black pepper

Recipe

Fry the onions and garlic languidly at a low heat. Add only the large zucchini and squash (retain the dices) and fry for quite a bit. This is where all the flavor comes in. Do not skimp on this step.

Add the water, salt and pepper. and let it simmer for 10 mins or so.

Blend the soup with the basil, and pass it through a fine sieve.

Add the diced zucchini and squash to the mixture, and bring to a boil again until they are cooked.

Serve over the bread sprinkled with parmesan and black pepper.

Farmers' Market Bounty Summer Menu

Zucchini Fritters with tzatziki
♥
Gazpacho
♥
Cherry Granita
♥
Penne con zucchini

Zucchini Fritters

Once you understand the basic idea, you'll realize that you can pretty much use any vegetable. Only caveat; they must be hand-grated, and then squeezed to remove the water.

If you want to be all nouveau about it, you can bake them instead of frying. They'll have the same texture minus the grease. Of course, if your goal is to be the size of Mark Bittman's ass then this is not an option.

Ingredients

1-2 zucchini grated
1 red onion grated
2 eggs
1/2 cup parmigiano-reggiano grated
breadcrumbs
salt
pepper

Recipe

Two eggs, salt and pepper. Whip 'em, whip 'em good.

Add the squeezed shredded zucchini and onions. You can actually "see" the squeezing part since they are in the shape of the CC's palm.

Parm plus breadcrumbs.

The final mixture. It will be slightly "loose", and it can be a bit tricky to shape them. Add more breadcrumbs if you're not totally comfortable with it.

Lay them out on a lightly oiled sheet, and bake at 450F for 20-22 minutes. You must turn them over at the 12 minute mark. (You could just pan fry them, of course.)

Yummy, yummy, yummy in my tummy. (The red sauce is Sriracha naturellement!)

Hiking and pasta

Next up on the California trail was Yosemite where we carried our food and our water.

The CC got there first (predictably!), and was charged with cooking dinner.

Ingredients

2-3 tbsp olive oil
2 large onions, halved, and cut into ringlets
3 zucchini squash (cut into rounds)
12-20 pattypan squash (cut into quarters)
mint, and basil (cut coarsely by hand)
salt to taste
pepper (lots!)

Recipe

Heat the olive oil, and fry the onions until they are soft and limp. Toss in the squash, and some water, salt to taste, lots and lots of black pepper, cover and let the squash cook. Add the mint and basil at the end. Turn off the heat.

Serve over farfalle (bowtie pasta for the Americans.)