The lockdown cookbook

yes, those are big-ass shells

i'm really not inclined to post in covid-19 threads b/c i don't think my experiences will be particularly notable but i did make a couple things this week designed to have lots of leftovers and now i'm preoccupied with my inventory of useful containers and freezer space : /

I acquired a bag of rice and some tofu. Big day.

I had hiyadofu with ginger and wasabi and pickles for lunch.

Made my favorite Cooks Illustrated chilli recipe tonight. Lots more cooking to come.

still experimenting with bubble-and-squeaked breakfast daal

(viz shallow fried in butter and oil with onions, or this morning MUSHROOMS as they were looking a bit mummified)

basically it's too wet to caramelise much at all but it does a little, and it's cheery (i have made a fvckton for just one self-isolated person, so difft ways of serving it = U&K)

My ex is a better cook than me-- really a culinary prodigy tbh, never trained or anything but just makes miracles-- and yet I did 80% of the cooking when we were together. Either out of spite or out of post-breakup-reinvention, he's trying his hand at being a Domestic King post-breakup and posting photos of shit he's been whipping up for him and his new roommate, @'ing Alison Roman, and just generally making me feel confused and rueful but also very hungry and wishing he'd invite me over to eat some of that shit.

Anyway we been on good terms and he's been trying to convince me to get on the Alison Roman train. I kind of skeptically made a couple of things from her book and they were fine, I get it, her plating ideas are really interesting sometimes. That said, a couple nights ago I made something of hers so spectacular and amazing that I'm gonna make it every couple of weeks for the rest of my life, for sure. I sent photos of the results to my ex and he replied "I've overdone it with shrimp" and "you eat too much pasta" lol.

Here's the wonderful recipe, with some edits:

Sungold Pasta with Lemony Shellfish, Garlic, and Pistachios

1/3 cup olive oil
8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 T fennel seeds, crushed
1 t crushed red pepper flakes
1 lb grape tomatoes
12 oz linguini (I made mine fresh)
1/2 c dry white wine
1.5 lb clams (I used 3/4 lb frozen clam meat, defrosted)
1.5 lb med. shrimp (I used 1.5 lb frozen, defrosted, and peeled them)
1/2 c shelled pistachios, coarsely ground (I throw em in a coffee grinder for a few seconds) (expensive to purchase w/out shells, but Ottolenghi uses them so much that I always have them in my pantry; they're very nice in this recipe but not 100% necessary)
1 lemon

Heat water
Heat oil in enormous pot with lid, med high
Put in garlic and fennel and stir 'til starting to caramelize, 8-10 min, season
Add seeds and flakes, stir
Add tomatoes-- I halved the grapes but you don't need to, season
Cook 10-12 min, breaking down the tomatoes with a spatula
Cook the pasta
Add wine to the sauce, reduce for 4-5 min
In go the clams and the shrimp (if you're using fresh clams, put them in before the shrimp, add shrimp when the clams start to open)
Shrimp should be cooked through but I always err on the rawer side
Throw pasta with a little pasta water and the sauce in a huge salad bowl and toss
Check seasoning, sprinkle with pistachios and finely chopped fennel fronds, additional pepper flakes and Maldon if you like
Serve with a lemon wedge

Alison Roman likes to use the word "jammy" to describe reduced tomatoes and I like that

Also this is one of several of her recipes where she essentially replaces a typical mirepoix with sautéed garlic + thinly sliced fennel. I'm a big fan of this. (Fennel is my favourite veg to put through my mandolin because there's no fingerdanger)

pics when you get a chance.

I think mirepoix is bullshit so I am very pro this substitution.

I use jammy to describe some wines.

I love "beginning a dish by sautéing a lily and a stalk" but agree that standard mirepoix opening moves lead to repetitious dining

that looks good. my wife hates fennel so i'm not sure i could get away with making it for her....maybe in the summer when we have good tomatoes from our CSA.

i have also been trying to figure out if alison roman is anything more than a decent recipe developer who got a high-profile gig? her stuff never looks bad to me but i'm not sure i need an entire book of it.

Using winter-available grape or cherry tomatoes is a cool $7 for the dish but it works fine. The fennel taste is not overwhelming at all, I would try it. Roman seems to be popular because of her winning personality and also the fact that she's made-mainstream certain mid-level plating tricks. (Smear some buttermilk sauce on the plate, arrange beets over top layered with quick-pickled onions, i.e.) There's an extra step of "assembly" added to her recipes that I think people really find appealing. Ottolenghi's newest cookbook "Simple" seems, in my eyes, to be a response to Roman's popularity-- or a reflection of more holistic cooking trends-- every recipe is the same trad cuisine with an added plating trick, the prep times are reduced (my big complaint about Ottolenghi is that there is a lot of prep involved, I could've rewatched half of The Sopranos in the amount of time I've spent making Etti's Herb Salad over the years).

I love that Roman's book is called "Nothing Fancy" and Ottolenghi's new book is called "Simple" lolol. We're living through a particular zeitgeist rn

that's a good point about plating. i wish i were better/more artful at it but honestly by the time everything is done i don't have much remaining energy for making it look nice

i rarely reach for my ottolenghi books these days because of the prep and some of the truly insane ingredient lists. i have a very well-stocked pantry and he will still challenge it with like nine spices, 4 different fresh herbs in large quantities, etc.

If I had a cookbook it would be called "I Am Making this Up As I Go Along As a Vehicle to Drink More Wine".

and it's a little sad that I am not really drinking at all right now, in order to keep my immunity up within however many days after I've last been outside.

if you join the ilx slack that ed started, some pics of cooking have started.

Yerac I feel like that’s most cookbooks, I do love Fergus Henderson’s assertion that “white wine exists only to make you wish you were drinking red wine”

Actually almost every Fergus recipe uses words like “restorative” suggesting that he traffics entirely in hangoverfood

Novice!

Almost everyone who hangs out with me slowly grows to love white wine more than red. It's so much more flexible with food.

yeah, we started out with heavy reds and transitioned to lighter reds and now mostly whites as we started cooking more. use-everything-in-lockdown mode has turned me on to Italian salsa verde. so simple and cheap to throw some tasty stuff together. made some with carrot tops and parsley and it's brightened up fried eggs, vegetables, and sandwiches the past few days.

Tonight: white crabmeat mixed with lemon and parsley on rye bread, bottle of godello. Might have an egg if I'm still hungry.

Just got a load of kilner jars in the post so I'll be lacto-fermeting the shit out of all the veg I can get my hands om this weekend. Consulted my Noma guide to fermentation the other day and will be attempting some fake miso made from yellow split peas, as a months-long project to eat up some time.

Almost out of red wine but got some Mee Godard Morgon and some Envinate reds arriving soon.

Four cases of wine just added to the basement and I cleaned out an 8-shelf pantry yesterday, washed it all down, and am using all the Mason jars from last summer to hold flours, pastas, etc to thwart the pantry moths that haven't quite been eradicated. Wish C had bought a chest freezer when he started saying, "Maybe I should get a chest freezer" because then I could put so much more in it.

i've def been thinking about buying a chest freezer

looks like that won't happen for a couple weeks though

I just read something about a P.C. Richard & Son in the hamptons getting 700 orders last weekend for chest freezers.

My wife has been making various pickled things to last us a month or two, so I put a post up here.

https://haonowshaokao.com/2020/03/21/in-a-pickle/

Nice. Seems like a very sensible approach.

If I may jump in after a week of home cooking, almost all done by tt...well, I stepped in to do one thing and it was AMAZING haha, not to blow my own horn here - I will give credit where it's due:

https://veganonboard.com/creamy-wild-garlic-soup/

Hard to get hold of wild garlic now alas so probably no chance of a repeat. I also made croutons with some leftover seed-bread and they brought things up even more, probably the best meal I've made idk

wow! that Hubei one, but also the sichuan, and kim chee look so good. any chance of pointing to a recipe for any of those, please?
xpost

i've never heard of this wild garlic leaf before. do you think green garlic would be a decent sub?

what an awesome array of pickled things! everything looks great.

is wild garlic leaf like ramps?

oh, smart of me to read the recipe first which says yes

i think it'd be worth a go, yes, although wild garlic has more of a spinach shape and texture (while tasting of garlic, it is incredible stuff)

once you have a soup base of fried (red) onion, veg stock and coconut milk it's p hard to fuck up tbh

I need to make some of those Hubei style pickles.

Could you share the recipe?

Also garlic chives from a Chinese market make a good sub for wild garlic.

Just falling asleep, will ask my wife if she has a recipe in the morning

Many thanks

yes

in the grass near my house there are random bunches of wild chives and my bf always gets mad at me when i try to eat them. he's wrong! dog pee chives.

Oooh I planted Chinese chives and Chinese garlic chives last year and then didn't end up using them for anything so I just moved them to an ornamental bed with the decorative allium but maybe I'll try again.

Six Seasons raw asparagus salad is great.

Hubei-style pickles-

The main ingredient is Chinese radish AKA daikon AKA mooli - cut into strips (including skin) and dried in the fridge for a few days at least

Sauce - in equal weights; onions, garlic, ginger root, pear and apple - all blended with a cup of fish sauce, a teaspoon of shrimp paste, a tablespoon of demerera sugar, chilli powder to taste (she says "enough to make it red")

When all is ready mix radish with sauce and put in jars, can be eaten after three days - don't leave it too long or it will get too sour.

Thanks, this also solves the problem of what to do with the slightly dried out daikon in the fridge. I have everything in the house apart from pears.

She says you can substitute apple for the pear - only a little of both required, maybe one apple is fine.

Interesting to see how many different names luobo has in English - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daikon#Names

Making smokey paprika chicken with potatoes and cauliflower, really love this recipe

Thanks, Cameraderie! Sadly I didn't keep my shrimp paste last time I moved but should have some anyways so will reacquire

Zahav salmon kebab w/ pilaf coquelicot

realizing i've had a pound of semolina not getting use i made pasta from scratch a couple times the last few days. had made some sundried tomato pesto the other day, too, so that's worked out well.
gonna make lockdown cookies today.but leaving out the "salted" part. i don't care for salty sweets, tbh:
https://food52.com/recipes/76919-salted-chocolate-buckwheat-cookie

very rarely cook ottalenghi, but i'm a big fan of the slow-cooked mushrooms and butterbean puree here:

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/18/yotam-ottolenghi-slow-cooking-recipes-mushrooms-parsnips-and-brussels-sprouts

had it last night and it was great. incredibly satisfying, good for vegans too (i'm not a vegan, but it's always good to have excellent vegetable only recipes to hand).

Made a lot of chicken soup this weekend. We're freezing most of it in case we catch it and don't have the strength to deal with cooking.