He Cooks, She Cooks

When someone asks me what my favorite type of food is, it’s hard to narrow it down. I love so many kinds of cuisine, and I don’t know enough about them all to make a definitive declaration.

Indian food is always on the list, but it just might be the top. The more I learn about it, the more I taste it, the surer I feel. Ginger, garlic, chilies and cilantro…what a combination, those ingredients should be in everything.

And in much of Indian food they are. Even scrambled eggs!

I read about this dish in Mangoes and Curry Leaves. The authors said it was something they had in a small tea shop in a rural area of India. I made it for lunch yesterday and loved it.

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This salad, while hearty and delicious, was especially satisfying to me because of how much thought I put behind it. It might sound silly to some, but I spent two days thinking about just how exactly to use the first fresh beet I ever bought.

I knew I wanted a roasted beet salad. I had some asparagus and fennel in the fridge — either of which would have paired well with beets. I went back and forth between the two, considering a dozen vinaigrettes in the process. Balsamic? Citrus? Red or white wine vinegar? What fresh herbs would I use? What about cheese? Shaved parmesan? Crumbled bleu or goat cheese?

I couldn’t decide, so I put off the salad and picked up a grilled sausage sandwich for dinner instead.

The next morning I woke up to rain. Ok, roasted beets and asparagus it is, I thought. As I pondered the cheese question again, it hit me — what about a poached egg instead? People do that with salads or asparagus all the time. Would it work with beets? Why not? Aussies put beets and fried egg on their burgers. I searched recipes online to see if anyone else had done a beet and asparagus salad with poached egg. I didn’t see anything exactly like it, but this salad with golden beets and an egg convinced me I was on the right track and inspired my vinaigrette choice. Cook and Eat’s red wine-prosciutto vinaigrette made me think of Craig Cyr’s warm bacon dressing I’d made and loved before.

It all came together in my head at that point: I’d start with arugula, a peppery green that is as far as I can go on the bitter scale (frisee, endive and others aren’t for me). Then sweet roasted beets and tender asparagus would be drizzled with a warm vinaigrette made with red wine vinegar, pancetta, green onions, chives, honey and olive oil. To top it all off, a poached egg and black pepper.

The result was everything I hoped it would be.

Oh, and fresh roasted beets? Where have you been all my life? Same with poached eggs. I was silly ever to have had aversions to either in the past.

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When I think fast food in Argentina, I think empanadas. Baked or fried dough filled with various combinations of meat, cheese and vegetables. What’s not to like?

There are endless options for buying traditional empanadas in Buenos Aires, and each one costs less than a dollar. I’d be silly to make my own at home. Instead, I wanted to create a version you can’t find on the streets here.

For some reason I couldn’t get the idea of eggs out of my head. Then when my friend Marissa told me about a frittata recipe with bacon and caramelized onions, I had a burst of inspiration. I would make a filling with similar flavors, and encase it in the wonder that is empanada dough.

I added caramelized onions, pancetta and reggianito (an Argentine cheese similar to Parmigiano) to scrambled eggs, which I cooked until just set, but softer than I normally eat them, knowing they’d keep cooking when I fried the empanadas.

It wasn’t until after I made them that I realized these were a glamourized version of American Hot Pockets. But fresh, no preservatives and a lot more flavor. I don’t even know the last time I ate a Hot Pocket, but I’ll tell you, I’d eat these again anytime.

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Someone told me that his mom once used five successive exclamation points in a note saying she was making frittata for dinner. At that point I had never tried frittata, but I knew I must if it roused that much excitement in someone. Now I love to make it, and it has become a default meal if I have a lot of eggs and vegetables. If you’re not familiar with frittata, it’s like a crustless quiche, or a baked omelet. 

I love to put ricotta in frittata, if only so I can say “ricotta frittata” over and over. I made this one just before spring break when I needed to clean out my refrigerator. No ricotta unfortunately, but I used up a zucchini, a Chinese eggplant, half a red bell pepper, leftover chorizo and most of my eggs. It made a nice dinner and breakfast before my flight.

Plus, it’s so easy, you’ll be singing like my friend Kat did, “Hakuna Frittata! It means no worries!”

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I am sure this salad sets the record for most ingredients — steak, mushrooms, goat cheese, hard boiled eggs, pecans, bacon, sage, cilantro, chives, basil, lavender, honey, croutons and many others. But Craig Cyr’s point was to show off the great local products from Saturday morning’s farmer’s market. It worked. The executive chef and owner of The Wine Cellar & Bistro in Columbia put on a cooking demonstration using almost entirely fresh and local goods. He made the most elaborate salad I’ve ever seen, but it was one of the best I’ve tasted, too.

“The market this morning seemed to scream salad,” Cyr said. But with a slight chill in the air he decided to make a warm vinaigrette for a hearty lunch or dinner salad. The idea gradually came together at the market and in the kitchen, then continued to evolve as he prepared the dish in front of the crowd.

He put an Asian style marinade on the flank steak from Show Me Farms. Then he sautéed mushrooms in butter and white wine, and made a red wine vinaigrette with bacon and chives — very French. Thus, he dubbed the salad “East meets West.”

I loved that every bite was different from the previous. Sometimes you got a lion’s mane mushroom and lavender-scented pecan. Then it would be a bite of cilantro, bacon and egg. You’d get steak with goat cheese. Or spinach and a crouton. There were different textures, and the sweet, sour and savory balance was perfect.

Craig and Sarah Cyr, owners of The Wine Cellar & Bistro

I don’t know how much of each ingredient Cyr used, but I’ll go through the ingredients and process he went through. You can try to create something like it, or at least try some of the elements in a salad of your own.

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