Upside-Down Pear

Around here, the tomatoes have arrived - the mottled-green heirloom varieties, the plump red grape tomatoes, the pear-shaped yellow tomatoes just the right size to pop in the mouth. Fresh tomatoes smell sharp and musky, sit heavy in the hand, glimmer softly in bowls on the counter.

This week, I’ve chopped some for bruschetta on toasted homemade bread, eaten slices plain and dusted with pepper, roasted small sweet halves in the oven with asparagus and lamb.

Still a green and white tomato waits for me; still little yellow tomatoes offer up their flesh to my teeth. Tomatoes contain all of summer inside their skins.

Today, it is time again for Is My Blog Burning?. This edition’s theme is dumplings. So I’ve had a month of experimentation with dumplings, variety: not my native cuisine and fried. First, I had a go at brik à l’oeuf, mixing up tuna and parsley into a soft filling, wrapping it in filo, tipping in scrambled raw egg, and frying it up in my cast-iron skillet. The timing on brik is sensitive: you need the egg to still be runny. I didn’t achieve it.

I also roasted half an eggplant and mixed it with parsley and garlic, salt and pepper, and fried that in filo as well. It came out perfectly crisp on the outside, warm and savory in the center.

Once I’d finished my fried feast, I still had more filo than I knew what to do with.

So I sliced some parboiled potatoes and the rest of the eggplant, sprinkled it all with salt, pepper, and paprika, folded it into filo, and baked it in the oven for one hour. I followed it with asparagus, onions, and Nevat, likewise wrapped, likewise baked.

I still had quite a bit of filo, and some thinking to do.

Last year, I’d made samosas out of pumpkin. Then, I’d faithfully followed the dough recipe:

Samosa dough

1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
5 tbsp cold water (or as needed)

Combine flour and salt, either in a food processor or by hand. Add oil slowly, until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add just enough cold water to form a medium-soft dough (if you are using a food processor, the dough will leave the sides of the bowl). Cover the dough and refrigerate.

When ready to use, make 1 inch balls of dough and roll them out thin.

The dough was excellent, but difficult to roll out; I spent hours trying to make it thin enough and large enough to wrap around the filling.

Why not try the filo? For that matter, why not give those Vietnamese spring roll wrappers a shot?

Pumpkin Samosa Filling

1 tbsp oil
1 small onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, diced
1/2 pie pumpkin or 16 oz can pumpkin puree
1 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garam masala
pinch turmeric

If using pie pumpkin, peel and cut into chunks. Steam until soft, then mash by hand or in a mixer or food processor.

Sweat onion & garlic in oil until translucent, then add all other ingredients and stir well. Cook until thickened, about 7 minutes. Let cool, then wrap in dough and fry.

Since pumpkins haven’t yet shown up in my local markets, I used a butternut squash. This was a mistake - too sweet, too soft; the filling ended up tasting like pumpkin pie with peas. It wasn’t bad, just strange.

First, I worked with the filo. I cut the sheets in half and then folded them again, so that I was working with a double layer the size of a quarter sheet. A big spoonful of filling in the middle, and brush the sides with water, fold them up & stick them together.

They didn’t look like samosas, but into the hot oil they went, one after the other.

When I was down to only a few pieces of filo left, I decided to experiment with the spring roll wrappers. These were not the soft, refrigerated kind, but were stiff and dried, labeled in Vietnamese, French (galettes de riz), and English. To use, they have to be dipped in water to soften them. Too long a dip, and the rice paper melts; too brief a dip, and it is too stiff to work with. I experimented and found that a quick in-and-out motion in a shallow pan worked best; I filled up a wrapper and dropped it in the oil - and jumped back as the water made the oil spatter. The next one tore as it went in, and the third puffed up strangely.

I went back to the filo: predictable, controllable, well-behaved.

The finished dumplings were almost nothing like samosa; they were tasty, but might have worked better as a dessert (minus the peas, onions, and garlic, plus powdered sugar over top). The ones in spring roll wrappers were more samosa-like in texture, but the wrappers were so annoying to work with that I think I shall avoid them in the future.

My quest for good substitutes for homemade samosa dough continues. Next time: refrigerated egg roll wrappers.

She was tall and wry-voiced and always seemed tipsy, and the food was delicious.

But what I loved was the fearlessness, the joy and ease in her approach. She was the food-lover’s embodiment of the hymn I learned in childhood: Be not afraid - I go before you always. Come, follow me, and I will give you…dinner.

If there’s a heaven, I’m sure she’s there now, with plenty of food and tipple to keep her company.

When I was younger, I thought there was only one way to cook asparagus: steam it, dress it with butter, and that was that. When I started cooking for myself, that was the first preparation I tried - soon augmented by fresh dill, courtesy of the leftover dill in my refrigerator one summer afternoon. When I began cooking for my then-boyfriend, I added hollandaise to the party in the belief that it would seduce him into eating a vegetable (it worked).

But it took me years to start experimenting with asparagus - roasting it, searing it, cutting it up into stir-fry.

My most recent experiment involved filo dough.

We had some filo left over from a foray (mostly successful) into brik à l’oeuf, a Tunisian fried dumpling. While I was trying to think of what to do with it, my husband (the boyfriend seduced by hollandaise) came home with a pound of Nevat, a delicious goat cheese. The wheels in my head began to spin: we have filo. We have asparagus, and parsley, and now we have this cheese.

I laid the asparagus down on a bed of filo, covered it with chopped onions and parsley, sprinkled it carefully with salt and ground fresh pepper over it. Then I cut pieces of the cheese, trimming the rinds, and laid them over top before rolling the whole thing into a log and wrapping it with another sheet of filo and slipping it into the oven.

It came out warm and golden, perfect and crisp on the outside, with the inside soft: the cheese melted, the asparagus and onions soft and succulent.

Asparagus and Cheese in Filo

• about 15 stalks asparagus, washed, trimmed, and cut in half
• about 1/4 to 1/3 lb Nevat, or a good chevre
• 1 small onion, chopped fine
• 3 tbsp parsley, chopped fine
• salt
• fresh-ground black pepper
• olive oil
• 3 sheets filo dough

Preheat oven to 350F.

Lay 2 sheets of the filo on top of each other on a flat surface. Arrange the asparagus at one end, leaving enough to fold over. Add the onion, parsley, and salt and ground pepper. Drizzle lightly with olive oil. Carefully roll into a log and tuck the ends under. Brush the outside with olive oil, then wrap in the third sheet of filo. Brush the outside sheet with olive oil, cover with foil, and place in oven. Bake for 1 hour, removing foil for last 15 minutes.

Serve with gravy or a tomato-basil sauce.

I learned to cook very young. I remember my parents helping me choose a meal to make, taking me shopping for the ingredients, and helping me prepare it; I remember the sweet-and-sour chicken I chose for my first try and hated. In retrospect, it was not all that bad - a bit watery and too sweet, but I’ve had worse in Chinese restaurants over the years. I remember going to the supermarket, the Italian grocery, the Asian market, the East End Food Co-op, the Strip.

We were taught to make salads, to make our own school lunches, to figure out our own snacks, to function as sous-chefs for my mother. My sisters and I talk of our “home training” - this steady exposure to choosing food, to preparing food, to serving food. By the time I moved out at seventeen, I had been cooking for twelve years. I spent the next few years learning to deal with no prep room, a tiny, terrible stove, a microwave, a budget. I moved into an apartment with Nat and learned to cook with gas. I tried new things as I got bolder and more confident, and I called my mother up for recipes, and went over to her house to eat dinner and get more ideas to try.

I started visiting Nat’s mother, and learned about fish and boat rice and cookies I’d never dreamed of, and I took those ideas home with me as well.

Now, when I go over to visit my mother, she has to chase congregations of her children out of the kitchen, a legacy of all the years she spent having us help her and teaching us to be useful. We love kitchens, love spending time in them, hanging out, talking, doing prep work or stealing bits out of the pot. When we were younger, this was one of the best ways to get uninterrupted time with Mom. Nowadays, it’s one of the ways we reconnect.

Chicken dijon
My mother makes this a lot; I’ve had a photocopy of the recipe for years. I don’t know where it came from, originally, but the copy hanging up in my pantry has her handwriting and mine all over it. I’ve included the notes here.

• 8 chicken breasts, skinned and boned (I cut these up into smaller cutlets or fingers to make them easier to wrangle.)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup oil (I use extra virgin olive oil. I also use less butter & oil than the recipe calls for.)
• 6 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 6 tbsp freshly chopped chives (I’ve only used chives with this once. Sometimes I just increase the basil. Sometimes I use scallions. Sometimes I add some other herb. Whatever.)
• 1/2 tsp dried basil (I like more.)
• Dash black pepper (more!)
• Dash cayenne pepper (more!)
• salt (kosher if you have it)
• 2 cups fine bread crumbs

Melt the butter and combine with oil. (Melt the butter w. oil in microwave - 20-35 sec.). Set aside 1/2 of the mixture. To the other half, add mustard, peppers, and herbs. Whisk until smooth. Salt chicken lightly (I always skip this), brush with mustard mixture (I always just dunk it to coat it), roll in bread crumbs. Line 9×13 baking pan with foil (Mom says: I also don’t line pan w. foil - but it is easier to clean up if you do.) Add part of the reserved butter & oil, coating the bottom of the pan well. Place chicken breasts in baking pan and bake at 375°F for approximately 1 hour. (I find that the chicken is slightly dry if you cook it this long.) Baste as necessary w. the remaining butter & oil. If crumbs begin browing too quickly, cover pan lightly with tent of foil.

I find this a bit too greasy as originally written, but just perfect if you cut the amount of butter & oil a bit. It expands easily - I like it for parties, since it’s almost as easy to make 40 pieces as 8, and it’s great cold, and (if cut in half like I suggest above), can be easily eaten with the fingers.

It’s good with rice, spinach, pasta…well, actually, it’s good with almost anything.

Thank you, Mom.

I love figs, though I didn’t always. Like a lot of people, my main fig experience as a child was Fig Newtons. Now, there is nothing wrong with Fig Newtons, but they do not exactly inspire one to go out and try fresh figs. I don’t know anyone who bit into a Fig Newton and was so struck by the flavor of the filling that they went fig-crazy; much more likely was that the person ate Fig Newtons because they were out of Oreos.

Now, I look forward to the brief times of the year when I can get beautiful fresh figs. Around here, I mostly see Black Mission figs and Calmyrna figs. Of the two, I prefer the green Calmyrnas: I like their softly burred exteriors and pretty amber-colored insides; I like their honeylike scent and the way they sit at the bottom of my cupped palm. I am fond of foods that seem to have secrets, and figs are the most secretive fruit I know.

Fig Salad with Chevre and Pine Nuts
This salad tastes a bit of balsamic vinegar at first, and then the chevre/pine nut flavor comes through, and it finishes off with the fig taste. If you use too much vinegar, that’s all you’ll taste, so be careful!

Recipe makes enough for two people as a side dish.

• 6 ripe Calmyrna figs
• handful of pine nuts
• 1-2 oz. chevre (goat cheese)
• balsamic vinegar
• extra-virgin olive oil (preferably a fruity one, not a peppery one)

Toast pine nuts, and let cool.

Peel the figs, and cut each fig into 10-or-so pieces. The pieces should be a bit smaller than bite-size. Put the fig pieces into a bowl.

Crumble chevre over figs, and add the cooled pine nuts.

Drizzle with a little olive oil and some balsamic vinegar, just enough to coat the ingredients, and toss gently.