At lease one good thing came out of colonialism

Leave it to the French: the finest product of their colonial period in Indochina had to be edible, right? I loooove a good sandwich, and the bành mì is one super-delicious specimen of the genre.

If you’ve never experienced a bành mì—pardon me while I weep—it’s a combination of many delicious things that add up to far more than the sum of their parts. The term “bành mì” is Vietnamese for bread, more specifically the individually-sized baguette. In Vietnam, the bread is airier, lighter, with a thinner crust. Ergo: perfect for sandwiches. A bành mì is filled with a combination of French (pâté, mayonnaise) and native ingredients (cilantro, hot sauce, pickled vegetables).

There are bazillions (or as my figlio minore used to say, brazilians) of possibilities, but some of the more popular bành mì start with pork (belly, sausage, patties, meatballs), grilled chicken, pate, cheese, fried eggs, tofu, or fish. Add a layer of vegetables like fresh cucumber slices and pickled carrots and daikon. Then a sprinkling of cilantro. The bread is spread with spicy chili sauce and sliced chili peppers. 

Voilà! A combination of spicy, meaty, zingy, sweet, and tangy that is absolute perfection.

This version is fairly simple. Although it may look daunting, it’s really just a long list of ingredients with some very easy instructions, and much of it can be done well in advance. Don’t be put off: If you have to go out and buy fish sauce or sriracha for this recipe, that’s a good thing (pace Martha). I promise you will love them. Fish sauce (also known is nam pla or nuoc nam) is available these days in most supermarkets. And sriracha has so many uses, you’ll soon be leaving it on the table along with the salt and pepper.

I make these for dinner along with a big salad and some oven roasted spicy fries. It’s a great easy meal, and the leftovers…wait, I’ve never had any.

Bành mì with spicy pork meatballs

Serves: makes 4 sandwiches (you’ll need more for a hungry crowd)

INGREDIENTS

HOT CHILI MAYO

2/3 cup mayonnaise

2 green onions, finely chopped

1 TB hot chili sauce (such as sriracha)

MEATBALLS

1 pound ground pork

4 garlic cloves, minced

3 green onions, finely chopped

1 TB fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)

1 TB hot chili sauce (such as sriracha)

1 TB sugar

2 tsp cornstarch

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp coarse kosher salt

SANDWICHES

1-2 cups coarsely grated carrots

1-2 cups coarsely grated peeled daikon

1/4 cup unseasoned rice vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp coarse kosher salt

1 TB Asian sesame oil

4 10-inch-long individual baguettes or four 10-inch-long pieces French-bread baguette

Thinly sliced jalapeño chiles

16 large fresh cilantro sprigs

PREPARATION

TO MAKE THE HOT CHILI MAYO

Stir all ingredients in small bowl. Season with salt.

DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.

TO FORM THE MEATBALLS

Gently mix all ingredients in large bowl. Using moistened hands and scant tablespoonful for each, roll meat mixture into 1-inch meatballs. Arrange on baking sheet.

DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.

TO MAKE THE SANDWICHES

1. Toss first 5 ingredients in medium bowl. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour, tossing occasionally.
2. While the veggies are marinating, cook the meatballs. Heat sesame oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the meatballs (don't crowd them, cook in batches if necessary). Sauté until brown and cooked through, turning meatballs often and lowering heat if browning too quickly, about 15 minutes. Keep them warm in the oven while you cook the remaining meatballs.
3. Slice each baguette or baguette piece horizontally in half. Scoop out enough bread from each bread half to leave 1/2-inch-thick shell. Spread hot chili mayo over each bread shell. Arrange jalapeños, then cilantro, in bottom halves. Fill each with 1/4 of meatballs. Drain pickled vegetables, place atop meatballs. Press on baguette tops. (You can also put all the finished ingredients on the table and let your diners create their own bành mì to their liking: as spicy, tangy, or meaty as they prefer.)

You've got kale.

Bello Gennaro

There’s a small Italian restaurant around the corner from me called Gennaro. It’s been there for close to 20 years, owned by a neighborhood guy named, you guessed it, Gennaro. It’s the definition of a great neighborhood restaurant: warm and welcoming, great food, no reservations, excellent wine list, and a wait staff that hasn’t changed much in all these years (a sure sign of a well-run establishment). Plus, every member of my opinionated food-loving family loves it. So we go there. A lot.

Gennaro is from an island off the coast of an island, Lipari, off of Sicily. The restaurant’s menu is more varied than the typical red sauce place, but not as esoteric as some of the city’s more upscale Italian joints. It manages to perfectly satisfy my pasta-worshipping red-sauce-addicted kids and my tomato-sauce-makes-me-scream self. They make incredibly delicious lamb chops (I'm a sucker for anything lamb). Plus, there are about 20 specials every night, which the waiters manage to remember and rattle off without a hitch every single time.

But perhaps the thing I am most grateful to Gennaro for, is that he has changed my mind about kale. Kale, in my college years, was the ultimate flower child veggie: healthy, crunchy, wholesome, disgusting. We could grow it on the commune, we could bake it into pies (we did, really), we could mix it with cheap rice and cheap pasta from the food co-op. Whatever we did with kale, it remained chewy, bitter, and revolting.

Bello lacinato kale

Until we met Gennaro’s kale. His insalata di cavolo nero with currants, pine nuts, balsamic vinegar, and ricotta salata was a whole new green revelation: sharp, vivid, vinegary, tart, sweet—sexy kale. Reason one: He uses lacinato kale, which is regular curly kale’s hipper, more sophisticated cousin. Lacinato kale is so cool that it has more names than this guy: dinosaur kale, Tuscan kale, black kale, Italian kale, Tuscan cabbage, palm tree kale, black Tuscan palm, which is regular old curly kale’s hipper, more sophisticated cousin.

Reason two to love Gennaro’s kale salad: the dressing, which both tames the bitter in the kale and adds a jolt of sweet-tart that makes the whole thing more so good that my figlio minore, who has never—and I’m not exaggerating here—met a green vegetable worth eating, will happily have seconds, even thirds. And the figlio maggiore not only likes it, he actually requests it be made for him when he’s home.

Bello kale salad

After enjoying it at the restaurant a few times, I decided I had to attempt to replicate the dish at home. After many failed experiments, I think I finally got it right. It may not be exactly the magic they serve at Gennaro’s, but it’s pretty damn close. Since I rarely have ricotta salata on hand, I use shaved parmesan. And I’ve substituted dried cranberries and golden raisins for the currants with good results (although the smaller currants look prettier). I’ve also used walnuts when pine nuts are scarce (or too expensive). Pine nuts are best (and nothing smells as good as toasting pine nuts) but walnuts, even slivered almonds, are fine substitutes.

Please try it, even if you hate kale. I used to. And then I met Gennaro.

Kale Salad

2 TB dried currants (or cranberries, or golden raisins, or raisins)

3 TB white balsamic vinegar (adjust to your taste)

1 TB unseasoned rice vinegar

1 TB honey (adjust to your taste)

1 TB extra-virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 bunches Tuscan kale (about 1 pound)

2 TB pine nuts

Shavings of ricotta salata or parmesan

1. Let the currents soak in the vinegar for a few minutes to plump (they can soak all day or even overnight if you like).
2. Remove center ribs and stems from the kale, thinly slice crosswise.
3. Lightly toast the pine nuts till golden.
4. Whisk the vinegars, honey, oil, salt. Add the kale and currants; toss to coat. Let macinate 20 minutes at room temperature, tossing occasionally.
5. Season to taste with salt and pepper, stir in pine nuts, serve topped with cheese shavings. 

Viva la pissaladiere!

A long time ago I worked at a major national magazine. I don’t want to mention its name, but it’s a synonym for “humans.” It was owned by a big corporate entity. I won’t mention its name either, but it rhymes with “crime stink.”

I hated working there. It was big, corporate, ridiculously WASPy, and predominantly male at a time when magazine publishing was already overrun by women. No one said what they meant. They all seemed to use a language they learned at prep school or at college “in Connecticut,” as they would say. It took me months to figure out they meant Yale, and not Wesleyan or Fairfield.

But a few good things did come out of my mostly miserable five years there. I made more money than I would have made anywhere else. I learned that there were still people in the world – the New York City publishing world! – who were anti-Semitic. And, most importantly, I met my dear friend Bryce. Of course, Bryce didn’t actually work at Crime Stink, since he wasn’t a wealthy twit who went to college “in Connecticut.” He was the account guy at our ad agency, and I was his client. That meant he was supposed to toady to me and take me out for fancy dinners and tell me I was always right. But he wasn’t very good at his job, I guess, because I don’t remember any toadying or fancy dining or complimenting. He did, however, recover my sofas (brilliantly!), because he wanted to practice his recently acquired reupholstering skills, and he danced with me at corporate parties (those Crime Stink guys did not acquire any dancing skills in prep school), and he made me laugh with killer imitations of the Connecticut lockjaw with which my colleagues spoke.

Provence

But most relevantly (I have a point here, I promise), he went to cooking class with me. Once a week, for several months, he would tell the folks at his agency he was going to see the client and I would tell my people at “Humans” that I was going to the agency and we would sneak off to a little cooking school downtown for a Provençal cooking class, where we learned to make yummy things like tapenade, ratatouille, tarte au citron, and killer aioli. And wonderful pissaladiere, the Provençal onion tart that makes ordinary pizza look pale.

Pissaladiere is believed to have been introduced to Provence by Roman cooks way back in the fourteenth century. The name probably comes from the Latin “piscis” (fish), which became “pissalat” via “peis salat” (“salted fish” in the dialect spoken in Nice). Traditionally, the dough is thicker than classic pizza dough, but you can make it with whatever works for you: your own pizza dough, store-bought pizza dough, or pâte brisée. The traditional topping is caramelized onions, olives, and anchovies, although I sometimes add garlic and crumblings of chevre to the mix. You can certainly personalize yours, but try the original at least once. It really is something perfect, and perfectly delicious.

Pissaladiere

If you use purchased pizza dough, this is a very easy dish to make. But it does take about an hour for the onions to cook down. You need to stir occasionally, but not more than a few times during that hour, so you don’t need to pay close attention.

Ingredients

Your favorite pizza dough or purchased dough

2 lb. thinly sliced onions

a few sprigs of fresh rosemary or thyme, or both

salt and pepper

¼ cup olive oil

about 16 pitted black olives

about 10 anchovy filets

Directions

1. Cook the onions with the olive oil and herbs for about 45 minutes, covered, then without the cover for about 10-15 minutes more, so they can dry out a bit. (You can make this the day before and keep covered and chilled.) I like to add a few whole peeled garlic cloves to the mix as well.
2. Stretch the dough to fit whatever pan you’re using. The traditional shape is a rectangle about the size of a baking sheet but you can use a pizza pan if you prefer.
3. Spread the onions over the stretched dough; make a design of the anchovies and olives. If you’re adding some crumbled cheese, now’s the time.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.
5. Slice and serve.

Norway, ho!

I wrote a couple of posts ago that I have two different cooking groups (remember, it was here, about Bulgarian night, and I included the recipe for that delicious rose water and pistachio pound cake.

That was group A (hosts choose theme and provide the beverages, guests bring the food). This week it was group B’s turn. In that group (which we fondly and hilariously call Dinners of the World, Unite! or DOTWU!), we have all the countries in the world on little slips of paper in a bowl. Each member gets to pick three (there was panic at the idea of picking one and being stuck with someplace like the Marshall Islands) and then makes a dinner for the group featuring the cuisine of that land.

We’ve had some amazing meals from Sri Lanka, Belgium, Spain, Djibouti, Albania, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Italy and the Bahamas. And then there was Norway.

I’ve always believed that the traditional food of any country has something to offer. No matter how perverse a cuisine has become (Olive Garden Fried Lasagna, anyone?), if you go back to its roots, you’ll usually find fresh vegetables, interesting cooking methods, tasty spices and herbs.

The Norwegian flag

At least I used to think that, until I picked Norway. In Norway, the winters are long. Like 10 months of the year long. There’s not much of a growing season, so there aren’t a whole lot of fresh vegetables or fruits. Or herbs. Most traditional dishes feature dill and parsley, salt and pepper. And maybe cardamom. There are loads of sheep, so traditionally the Norwegians ate mutton. And fish. Lots of fish. But the things they learned to do with fish, well, they should be illegal. Fish pudding. Fish balls. Lutefisk, which is made from whitefish (usually cod) that is dried, then soaked in lye until it reaches a gelatinous texture. I don’t know about you, but “gelatinous” is one of those words I don’t like applied to anything I’m about to eat. Lutefisk, according to one source, “has an extremely strong, pungent odor.” In other words, it stinks. 

For a great go-to chicken, go to Provençe

Picnic in Provençe 

You know how everyone has a go-to company recipe? Or they should? Something you make when you can’t think of something to make? 

A good to-go recipe should have a good input/output ratio, meaning the amount of work you put into it should be far less than the amount of ooohs and aaaahs you get when serving it. It should be the kind of recipe that makes people say, “I can’t believe something this good is this easy.”

Olive-picking in Provençe

My go-to company recipe is roast chicken. Well-made roast chicken with a little olive oil massaged into the skin and plenty of herbs scattered on top, is a fine thing. Roast chicken with lots of fresh rosemary and chopped garlic mixed with softened butter and slid under the skin is an even more wonderful thing. But this roast chicken dish is a sublime thing. Your house will smell of Provençe, of licorice-y fennel and sweet garlic, of rosemary and thyme and wine. If you close your eyes you can almost hear the traffic on the Boulevard des Anglais.

Pussycat in Provençe

In addition to the excellent input/output ratio, this recipe meets my other criteria for a good go-to recipe: it’s eminently flexible. No tomatoes? Leave them out! No Niçoise olives?Try a different kind—or leave them out, too! The only requirements: the fennel, plenty of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and the herbs. Oh, and the chicken. Everything else is entirely optional. I’ve mentioned several alternative ideas in parenthesis in the recipe.

Panorama in Provençe

When pickin’ a chicken: While most chefs recommend brining for a moister bird, I just buy kosher chicken, which has already been salted and, to me at least, ends up moister and more flavorful. If you don’t have access to kosher chicken (what, you don’t live in Noo Yawk?), do try brining. The difference, particularly in the white meat, will be noticeable.

Perfect chicken from Provençe

Roast Chicken Provençal

Adapted from a cooking magazine recipe from many years ago

Serves: 4

8 large shallots (or onions)

6 ripe plum tomatoes, quartered (or canned, or none at all)

¼ cup dry white wine (optional, but good)

1 9-ounce package frozen artichoke hearts (or canned, or jarred)

1 fresh fennel bulb, trimmed, cut lengthwise into eighths

1 garlic head, cloves separated, unpeeled

2/3 cup brine-cured olives, such as Niçoise (or another type, or leave them out)

¼ cup fresh lemon juice (no substitutes here, make it fresh!)

2 TB chopped fresh rosemary or 2 tsp dried, crumbled

2 TB chopped fresh thyme or 2 tsp dried, crumbled

1 cup chicken broth (can be eliminated, in which case add a bit more wine)

1 4-pound chicken

1.     Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°.

2.     Place first 5 ingredients into a large roasting pan. Pour lemon juice and oil over, moistening evenly. Sprinkle with herbs and season with salt and pepper.

3.     Pour ¾ cup chicken broth into pan. Season chicken with salt and pepper and add to pan. Roast 1 hour, basting with pan juices occasionally.

4.     Increase oven temperature to 450° and roast until chicken is brown and crisp and juices run clear when thigh is pierced with knife, basting frequently, about 20 minutes longer.

5.     Transfer chicken to a platter. Using a slotted spoon, transfer shallots, artichokes, fennel, olives, and all but 6 garlic cloves to the platter with the chicken. Cover to keep warm. Discard skin from the 6 reserved garlic cloves and place in processor; add contents of roasting pan and process until smooth. Thin with remaining broth if necessary. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer sauce to a serving bowl. Serve with chicken. (Note: I make this dish often just for family and don’t bother making the sauce, serving the roasted vegetables alongside the chicken with a little sauce drizzled over.)