Leftover Chuck

In this previous post, I described cooking a piece of beef chuck sous vide. We of course ended up with more than we could eat at a single sitting. So what to do next? I could consigne it to freezer bags, freeze it so that it could be dumped three years later, or better still could find creative uses for it.

It became a voyage of discovery with a really good outcome. The other key idea is that if you have hot potatoes, you can dress withem with a flavorfull vinaigrette style dressing, the potatoes absorb the dressing and become really flavorfull. So why not do it with carrots too?

Ingredients

6 Small Yukon Gold potatoes - of roughly even size

6 small (width of your ring finger) unpeeled, but washed carrrots, cut into 1/2" thick rounds 

3 scallions, white and light green parts only, sliced finely

2T Pickled jalapeno peppers

1 Roasted red pepper, sliced into small strips

3T Pine nuts, toasted

8 Grape tomatoes

4 Radishes, quartered

1 Hot pepper ( we used a fish pepper from the garden)

1/4 cup vinaigrette (we made some using a candied tomato, roasted pepper, olive oil base)

1/2 head of butter lettuce, chopped

8 oz cooked beef chuck, sliced very thinly

Method

Microwave the carrots and potatoes on high until they are soft. The carrots took 90 seconds, the potatoes 3 minutes. As soon as they come out of the  microwave, place in a bowl with the vinaigrette. Add the scallions , hot pepper, pickled jalapenos and leave to set.

Meanwhile, warm the meat gently in a saute pan over low heat. You are not cooking it, just making sure that it has a good texture.

Plate the dish by putting lettuce around the inside edge of each bowl, leaving a small well. Into the well  put the potato/carrot mixture into the well. Srinkle some of the toasted pine nuts over the potatoes. Arrange the sliced peppers, radishes and tomatoes over the top. 

Arrange the thinly sliced beef in spokes on top. Drizzle with a little high quality olive oil and sherry vinegar.

Serve with a robust red wine.

OTBN 2020

We often participate in the Wall Street Journal "Open That Bottle Night" concept. The primary idea being to dink wine when you feel like it and not save stuff entirely for special occasions. The special occasion is when you want to drink it!

We have a pretty standardized format, although the attendees vary from year to year. Last night there were 11 of us in total. And there were 8 different wines.The lineup can be seen at this link OTBN 2020 Wine Line Up.

Our format is simple. Each "party" - solo or couple brings a wine that is special to them, and a dish to pair with it. We sequence the dishes so that we drink the wines in the right order. We also start with bubbles (this year the cremant de Bourgogne whose bottles are on the ends of the picture. With that we had some cheese straws, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, and goat cheese stuffed piquillos.

Once the event gets under way, we request that guest(s) who brought the next wine in sequence tells us about the wine and the dish. Then we try it, talk about it and generally carry-on. Thus for the 8 wines, there were 7 different dishes (some over achievers brought more than 1 dish.)

First Tasting 

Wine: Simonnet Febvre Grand Cru Chablis 2016

Food: Country pate (pork, duck, chicken liver, pistachio, tart cherry, brandy + aromatics) with a salad of arugula, pink endive, and radish. A little cranberry mustard on the plate and a pecan vinegar/oil dressing.

The wine came from a tasting at a local restaurant (Rapscallion) where I had previously had it paired with Murder Point Gulf oysters. I generally stay away from raw gulf oysters, but the murder points were spectacular.

Second Tasting

Wine: Raventos i Blanc  (2016) A delicate pink sparkling wine - described as being a "refrigerator wine" i.e. left behind by a friend after a very good party.

Food: A simple and delicious tomato pie with a side salad.  Extremely tasty and perfect for the time of the year

Third Tasting

One of the guests was rather over-scheduled. No time to make something. But she did invite a local caterer to make a dish, and it was excellent!

Wine: Stags Leap :Karia" Chardonnay (2017). Chosen because it goes so well with the food

Food: Roasted, stuffed jalapenos with smoked salmon, herbed cheese and a balsamic glaze. Nive because the ribs had been removed from the jalapenos, so not too much heat. But it did make the conversation turn to why some peppers are not spicy and others are, even though they cam from the same bush.

Fourth Tasting

Wine: Domaine du Grand Tinel - Chateau Neuf du Pape (2016)

Food: Some shaved Tete de Moine cheese with Serrano ham

The food comes from The Alps and Spain. The guests chose the CDP because it has enough body to stand up to the cheese. And since the cheese and ham come from such different locations, this wine remained neutral. Neutral geographically. But a terrific expression of CDP wines, 80+% Grenache.

Fifth Tasting

Wine: Vina Bosconia - Rioja 2007

Food: Croquetas and Spanish Tortilla

The Spanish couple brought this beautiful wine from Rioja. They waxed poetic about the wines and beauty of the region. And of course it went perfectly with the croquettas and the tortilla with its tender potato inside layers of egg.

Sixth Tasting

Wine:  Clos du Val Reserve Cabinet Sauvignon 2011

Food: A beef short-rib ragu, with warm spices over a mushroom gnocchi.

This was the wine that got our Oklahoma native friends to become interested in wine. Still lots of tannin and structure. An all round excellent wine and pairing.

Hearing about their wine tasting adventures in general had us all in stitches!

Seventh (and final) Tasting

Wine: Layer Cake 2018 Shiraz

Food: Chocolate mousse cups with raspberries and raspberry coulis

Even though it would be unusual to have a  lighter red wine after the big Cab from Clos du Val, this pairing worked extremely well. The wine cut the sweetness just enough and brought out the quality notes of the chocolate. This was not your Grandma's chocolate mousse!

Roasted Vegetable Salad

We had visited a local farmers' market last weekend. One of the farmers had these really cute fairy tale eggplants. These are small, variegated eggplants - about 2 -3 inches in length. Very tender and delicious, with none of the bitterness associated with the more conventional Italian eggplants. They are best cooked roasted in a hot oven with some good oil and shallots. We also roasted cherry tomatoes and shishito peppers from the garden. At the same farmers' market, there was a stall selling interesting salad greens. So we bought some Mizuna for the salad. A lemon juice/rice wine vinegar based vinaigrette, grilled bread (home made that day, of course) and there was dinner. Yup it did get the "we can serve this to people" accolade, so I was pretty happy with the result.

Ingredients

2 1/2 lbs fairy tale eggplant, sliced in half lengthwise

1 lb cherry tomatoes, halved pole to pole

1 large shallot, finely minced (divided use)

1 1/2 cups olive oil (divided use)

30 shishito peppers

1t dry mustard (e.g. Coleman's)

1/2t freshly ground black pepper

salt to taste

1 head mizuna

2 slices country bread, brushed with olive oil and grilled

Juice of 2 lemons

1/2 cup rice wine vinegar

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 350 (fan assisted) or 375(conventional). Add 1/2 the chopped shallots to 1/4 cup of olive oil. Swirl to coat. Add the eggplants and shishitos. Place the tomatoes, eggplant (cut side up) and shishitos on a wire rack over a sheet pan. Make sure that all of the oil/shallot mixture is spread over the eggplants. Roast in the oven for 15-20  minutes until the eggplants are softened and slightly brown. The shishitos will cook slightly before the eggplants, so watch them carefully. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Meanwhile make a vinaigrette, combining the mustard, lemon juice, salt, pepper, remaining shallots, and remaining oil.

Spread the mizuna in a serving bowl and pile on the roasted vegetables. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the warmed vegetables  (you will use maybe 1/4 of the made up vinaigrette - save the rest for other salads). Hand the grilled bread separately.  Serve with a crisp white wine (in my case the "On the White Keys" from Arietta. Madame had a South African Sauvignon Blanc from Spier. 

Duck Salad

Madame and I were too lazy to go to the store - or even anywhere last Sunday. So fridge and freezer diving we went. What did we find?

Some left over frozen (raw) duck breasts, mushrooms, scallions, lettuce, avocados and oranges. Easy - let's make some pan fried duck with an orange/mushroom sauce that will serve as a dressing over the lettuce leaves. Served with a ZD 2001 merlot and we were in heaven. Sadly the 2001 ZD merlot is not easily available. They only made 1470 cases of it. We were lucky to find a bottle or too.

I would have preferred it if the duck breasts had had some fat on them, but beggars cannot be choosers. We made do!

Ingredients

3 T vegetable oil (divided use)

2 duck breasts - skin and fat removed, lightly seasoned with salt on both sides

Segments of 2 oranges

5 scallions, white and green parts only, sliced into 1/4" pieces

4 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced - about 6 slices per mushroom

1 avocado, diced 

a handful of lettuce leaves, torn

salt and pepper to taste

Method

Heat 1 T of oil in a large skillet until very hot. Add the duck breasts and leave undisturbed for about a minute and a half - essentially until they release from the pan. Turn them over and repeat. Set the duck breasts aside.

Add the remaining oil to the hot pan, followed by the scallions and mushrooms. Turn the heat down to medium low and cook for a few minutes - until the mushrooms have wilted. Add the orange segments and any juice, return the duck breasts to warm up.

To serve, make a pile of lettuce n the plate. Pour over the pan juices. Slice the duck breasts thinly, mound on the lettuce and add the mushroom/scallion/orange pieces. Decorate with diced avocado. Grind a little black pepper over the dish.

Voila - about 25 minutes start to finish. It got the "We can serve this to people" accolade. Amazing what can be done with weird looking stuff in fridge and freezer. 

Squash Salad

In the summer here in Texas there is an abundance of squash - zucchini, yellow squash, crook-neck, 8-ball and a host of others. Our trip to the farmers' market on Saturday yielded some nice, firm zucchini - about 6" long each. Zucchini can be annoying to cook - all that water has to be driven off before they will brown - and then all of a sudden they are black. If you don't drive the water off, they are all limp and mushy - almost able to be sucked through a straw. Am I making them sound appetizing yet? I thought not.

Then I saw this thing advertised. It is a spiralizer. Once you get past the "gluten free" hype and stop trying to pretend that strands of zucchini are pasta, the idea is quite handy. The tool is unnecessary - at least for this dish. A good old-fashioned vegetable peeler is all you need. But the spiralizer did spark some thinking.

The secret to this dish is your choice of olive oil. It would be revolting with a neutral tasting oil. We used a California Koroneiki oil, an oil with lots of peppery notes and a silky, buttery mouth feel.

Ingredients (2 Servings)

4 medium sized zucchini

16 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 T capers, rinsed and drained

A few sprigs lemon thyme, leaves only chopped finely

A few glugs of high quality, peppery extra virgin olive oil. Probably 1/4 cup

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Kosher salt to taste

Coarsely ground black pepper to taste

1 avocado diced into 1/4" pieces

Crunchy sea salt for finishing

Method

Peel the zucchini, and then slice into ribbons length wise using the vegetable peeler. Discard the core where the seeds are.

Add the tomatoes, capers, lemon thyme, olive oil and lemon juice to the zucchini slices in a bowl and toss to coat. Add the seasoning salt and pepper to taste, and toss again.

Place 1/2 the avocado onto each plate. Mound the squash salad over the avocado. Sprinkle  some coarse salt on the surfaceof the salad. Frind some pepper onto the plate to make it look interesting, serve immediately

Caprese Salad

Kenji at SeriousEats makes some excellent points about Caprese salad. The keys are:

• Use really fresh tomatoes
• Use really fresh Mozzarella (none of that supermarket pizza topping Mozz.)
• Use really fresh basil, and tear it. (From the garden is the best)
• No vinegar
• Fruity olive oil
• Coarse salt.

So I made it his way tonight. Outstanding. I hadn't previously realized what a dulling effect vinegar has. It was so fresh, so tasty this way. I think there will be a lot more in our future.

Poached egg ravioli

Madame was on a trip and whenever she is away, it seems that I dig into the egg files for another way of using them. This time was no exception. We had had New Year's Eve dinner at Boulevardier in Dallas where Madame had a raviolo filled with a poached egg. It was delicious, the yolk still just runny, but cooked, oozing over the besciamella. So, I thought to myself, how hard can this be? Answer - very hard! But so worth it.
The goal was to make some fresh pasta, roll it thinly, put an egg into one sheet, another sheet on top, seal it up and poach it. Piece of cake! NOT. However after several trials I found a workable solution.
First I tried poaching whole eggs, chilling them in an ice bath before making the ravioli. The result? Too much filling and not a great texture. Next, just separate the yolk, put that in the Ravioli and poach the ravioli for various amounts of time - finally settling for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Once the ravioli had been figured out, it was time to decide how to serve it. I opted for a simple salad - greens from the garden, a few tomatoes, some kalamata olives and some crumbled frico (parmesan tuiles) left over from a different party.

Ingredients (Pasta)

100 gm (a little less than 4 oz) tipo 00 or all purpose flower

1 whole egg

a little salt

1 T good quality olive oil

1T water

Method (Pasta)

make a volcano with the flour and salt on the work surface. Break a whole egg into the crater. Pierce the yolk, and then stir incorporating a little flour from the edges. Once the mixture has become thick, add the oil, and stir some more. Add  the water (if necessary), turn the dough over and collect it into a ball. Ignore any bits that stick to the work surface. Knead for a few minutes - gentle kneading  - pressing with the heel of your hand, then turning a quarter turn and repeating. Wrap the dough tightly in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour - up to 24 hours.

Ingredients (Ravioli)

1 batch of pasta (above)

4 egg yolks (save whites for meringue or other uses)

Method (Ravioli)

Roll the pasta out very thinly indeed. It should make 2 strips 3 " wide and 3' long. On one strip place the egg yolks well spaced. Moisten the edges and the gaps in between the yolks before draping the second sheet. Press the second sheet to seal (where moistened). Make sure you get all the air out, and also make sure you use enough flour to prevent sticking. Crimp the rims of the ravioli and slide into simmering water for 3 minutes. At 3 minutes the pasta is cooked and the eggs are beginning to thicken.

Serve over a simple salad.

Fall Salad on North Texas Now

Madame's students asked if I would do a guest segment on the North Texas Now television show that they produce. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But it was scheduled for October 26 - a bitterly cold and blustery day to be out in the Botanic Garden in Fort Worth. The segment was only going to long enough for one dish and a crafty technique. I chose to make a fall salad with a warm onion/kiwi/clementine dressing. It had yellow tomatoes so it looked proper for the season, and some baked pita chips to give it some crunch.
Halving small tomatoes is a pain to do, but luckily there is a trick to i. Here's a link to the blog page that illustrates the "trick" (albeit with olives, but the principle applies). Wow your friends and family with your knife skills as you zip through masses of small tomatoes in a matter of seconds.

Ingredients (serves 8 as a side salad)

1/4 cup olive oil (doesn't need to be extra virgin)
1 medium red onion, peeled and chopped - not diced small, you want some size and shape
2 kiwi fruit peeled and each sliced into 8 or 9 slices
3 clementines, peeled and segmented (use canned mandarins without their juice if you prefer)
24 yellow cherry tomatoes halved (by the technique referenced above to save time)
1 lemon - zest and juice
Some roughly torn lettuce leaves (or baby spinach as a substitute if you wish)
A handful of baked pita chips broken into small bite sized pieces
Salt and pepper to taste.

Method

In a large skillet (preferably non-stick) heat the oil gently over medium heat. When shimmering, add the onion and stir. Cook slowly (sweat) the onion for about 8 minutes to soften it, but do not allow to brown. When the onion is softened, add the sliced kiwis, the segmented clementines and the lemon zest. Heat through, stirring gently so as not to break up the fruits. When warmed through turn off the heat, add the lemon juice and stir to combine. This essentially makes the dressing from the pan contents + the lemon juice.
Meanwhile place the lettuce, pita chips and tomatoes in one large or several individual bowls. Add the dressing (solids and liquids) over the top of the greens, tomatoes and pita chips. Season to taste.
Serve while still warm.
 

Watermelon and feta salad

This goes nicely with grilled meat. We just happened to have some on Friday night - done on the big green egg (I told you I would become an egg bore).

Ingredients

6 cups watermelon cut into 3/4" cubes. Drained

7 oz crumbled Feta (use the real Greek, sheep's milk Feta) 

Juice of 1 lime

1/4 cup Extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup finely chopped mint

1/4 cup toasted sunflower seeds

salt/pepper to taste.

Put the watermelon and crumbled feta into a salad bowl. Whisk the lime juice and oil, add the mint and pour over the feta/watermelon. Toss (hands are best) gently until the melon is coated. Add the sunflower seeds. Toss again. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Check the seasoning and adjust with salt/pepper as necessary.

Grilled watermelon and chicken thighs

Yes, I realise that this is an odd title, but it is hard to come up with anything different.
It is now officially hot in Texas, so we typically avoid adding heat inside the kitchen and use the grill for just about everything. Tonight's dinner was no exception. And, as usual there are leftovers: The dinner was a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, potatoes, grilled chicken and grilled watermelon. Sounds odd, I admit! But it did get the "we can serve this to people" accolade from Madame, so all is well.
Why thighs and not breasts? They are much easier to cook without drying out - more forgiving and more flavorful. Yes they are fattier, but we embrace the inner fat in this house. Flavor rules!
Also we typically don't dress our salads directly. We cook potatoes, dress them while hot and then use the dressed potatoes as the dressing for the salad overall. It is one way to make sure you don't overdress the salad. Oh, and since it is as fast to make a dressing as it is to open a bottle, the dressings are all home made. Where to start?

Ingredients

Potatoes

2 lbs waxy potatoes with the skins on

water to cover

salt

Dressing

1/4 cup cider vinegar

3T Sherry vinegar

1 small shallot - minced

1/2 t dry mustard

salt

pepper

3/4 cup neutral oil

2T Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Watermelon

6 watermelon wedges

oil to lightly coat - prevent sticking on the grill

salt/pepper to taste

Chicken

6 Boneless/skinless chicken thighs

1/2t Hungarian paprika

1/2t Cayenne Pepper

1/2t Cumin

1T coarse salt

a few grinds of pepper

Seeds from 6 cardamom pods

1/4 t dried oregano

Salad

A few lettuce leaves torn into bite sized pieces

6 small tomatoes (not cherry or grape sized - larger than that, and nice and ripe), each cut into eighths

1 small cucumber peeled and chopped so the pieces are the same size as the tomatoes

Coarse sea salt

Method

Potatoes

Quarter the potatoes. Place in cold, salted water in a saucepot. Bring to a simmer. and cook until fork tender, but not mushy. Drain the potatoes. While still warm pour the dressing over the potatoes and allow to come to room temperature

Dressing

Combine all ingredients, except oils into a glass jar. Shake to mix. Add the oils, and shake again to emulsify. Use immediately. However it will keep in the fridge for a week or so.

Watermelon

Season the watermelon with salt/pepper and brush with oil. Grill for about 3 minutes each side. Serve slightly warm

Chicken

Pat the chicken thighs dry. make up the rub by vombining the spices in a pestle and mortar, grinding until a fine, uniform powder. Coat the chicken with the spice mixture and allow to stand while the grill heats up. When the grill is hot, grill the chicken thighs for about 5 min/side until they are cooked through. Remove from the grill, allow to stand for a few minutes before slicing thinly across the grain.

Assembly

Lay some lettuce leaves in the bottom of an individual salad bowl. Mix in the tomatoes/cucumber. Decorate with the chicken slices. Add some dressed potatoes to the salad, place 2 grilled watermelon wedges on top, and serve.

It looks like a lot of work, but from start to finish this took the requisite 45 minutes.

New Year's Eve

It was a quiet evening - Madame is out of town :-(. Bryan was free and as usual had some wines to try. So I put together a quick dinner to suit. Of course with 2 of us and several wines to try, it became a bit complex! For the main course I did an old stand-by http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/12/french-bistro-chicken-in-pot.html. Served with Pommes Anna (using the Cooks Illustrated recipe) and some sauteed/steamed cauliflower with fresh red chiles.. For a starter I made a room temp black-eyed pea dish, and for dessert a cherry clafoutis using some mysterious liquor brought back by a co-worker from Poland. Dave Gilbert came later and brought a bottle of the Stellekaya Orion 2005 with him. So we just sipped on that without a food pairing. That was a fantastic bottle. The evening did go on a bit and I see 5 used wine bottles (not all empty) shared amount the three of us. That goes some way to explaining why I feel a little groggy this morning - that and getting to bed slightly after 2am! So here are some of the dishes...

Black Eyed Peas
Ingredients
1t neutral vegetable oil
1 Linguisa sausage (you could use kielbasa if you wanted) diced into 1/4" cubes
1 medium red onion diced
12 oz fresh black eyed peas
2 cups chicken stock
1 yellow bell pepper (diced and blanched)
Cabbage leaves blanched - 1 per person
salt/pepper as needed
3 drops lemon juice per serving.
Coarse sea salt for crunch

Method
In a skillet, heat the oil over a medium flame until shimmering. Add the sausage and cook until it has taken on some color. Add the onion and cook some more - softening the onion. Once the onion is soft, add the peas, toss to mix well and add the stock. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 10 or so minutes. Turn off the heat, adjust the seasoning - that will largely depend on the sausage you are using.

Serving
Blanch the yellow pepper dice for 10-15 seconds in boiling, lightly salted water and immediately transfer to an ice bath. Do the same with the individual cabbage leaves.
Place the cabbage leaf on the plate, and trim to desired shape with kitchen shears. Make a small mound of the room temp peas/onions/sausage on the leaf. Add the lemon juice, sprinkle some of the yellow pepper on top, scatter some sea salt and serve.

Pairing
2003 Hermitage Blanc Paul Jaboulet "Gaspard de Sterimberg" This was crisp enough to cut through the fattiness of the linguisa. It stood up well to the intense flavors, but was otherwise a bit undistinguished. Surprisingly less interesting than the 2005 that we tasted at the Texas Sommelier convention back in August..

Clafoutis
Clafoutis is a traditional French dessert from the Limousin area of central France. It is a simple enough dessert, but is very impressive looking when it comes out of the oven. Think giant cherry popover (or Yorkshire pudding) . Like many batters this batter is better if allowed to develop a little, so I make it an hour in advance, and refrigerate it. I hold back a little milk to thin it just prior to makeing the dessert.


Ingredients
3/4 cup all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
6 eggs
1 cup whole milk
Butter to grease the dish
1 lb of pitted cherries. I used a jar of sour cherries in light syrup. These were drained
3T Kirsch


Method
Sift the flour into a small bowl with the salt. Beat the eggs lightly in a separate bowl and incorporate the eggs into the flour using a whisk. Add all but 2T of the milk and whick until a smooth batter is formed. Leave  to stand (in the fridge) for about an hour.
Drain the cherries and then immediately cover with the liqueur and toss to make sure that the cherries are fully covered. Leave these to sit too.
When ready to cook it, preheat the oven to 400F. Grease a low oven proof pan (I use a gratin dish) thoroughly with unsalted butter. Mix the cherries into the batter and pour immediately into the greased dish. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 35 minutes - or until puffy. Sprinkle with superfine sugar and serve hot from the oven - maybe with a little thin cream.

Christmas dinner

Madame and I thought we would be on our own for Christmas this year. Our neighbours, John and Lydia called at the last minute and asked if we would like to eat Christmas dinner with them. When John invites, it would be a very foolish person who turns him down. The food is always good!

So we made some cranberry sauce, a warmed goat cheese salad, green beans and roasted potatoes to go with their appetizers, a beautifully roasted turkey, a light and delicious dressing, and gravy. Lydia had made some rouille which we had as an appetizer - with of all things some peach champagne (Madame's favourite).

For dessert, a cheesecake, with a blueberry sauce made from blueberries, simple syrup and a little cassis. All in all a terrific time.



Cranberry sauce
Ingredients
12 oz package frozen cranberries
1T Seville orange marmalade (the kind made from bitter oranges)
7/8 cup white sugar
1 cup water
2T Creme de Cassis


Method
Bring sugar/water to the boil. Add marmalade and cranberries. Simmer for 10 or so minutes. Take off heat and allow to cool for a few minutes (doesn't have to be completely cooled). Add the creme de cassis. Refrigerate overnight.


Warmed Goat Cheese Salad
Ingredients
4 Rounds of fresh goat cheese 1/2 to 1 inch thick
1 Egg beaten with a few splashes of hot sauce (to taste)
1 Cup fresh breadcrumbs (not toasted)
1/2t Paprika
1/2t Salt
1/2t Pepper
1t Neutral oil
4 Tomato slices - each the same diameter as the rounds of cheese.
Mixed salad greens (try to include some mint, tarragon, basil)
Juice of 1 large lemon.
2T Rice wine vinegar
1T neutral oil

Method
Mix salt, pepper and paprika into breadcrumbs and put into a low bowl. Into another low bowl break the egg and beat lightly with a fork. Coat each round of cheese first with the egg and then breadcrumbs. Leave to sit for 15 minutes to 1 hour at room temperature.
Heat the oil on a griddle or other flat surface until shimmering. Put the rounds of goat cheese flat side down onto the skillet and allow the crumbs to brown (about 2 minutes). Flip the cheese over to the other side and cook until the second side is brown.
Arrange the tomato slices on a large plate, and put one toasted cheese round onto each tomato slice. Mound the greens on the plate separate from the tomato/cheese rounds. Make a quick dressing from the lemon juice, vinegar and oil. Combine thoroughly and pour over the greens.

Roasted Potatoes
Ingredients
2 Large baking potatoes (russets in the USA). Use starchy not waxy potatoes
1T salt
3Oz butter.

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 425F. Make sure that the rack is on the middle shelf.
Peel the potatoes and cut into bit sized chunks. I typically get 8 pieces per large russet. Cover potatoes with water in a large saucepan and add the salt. Bring the potatoes to a simmer and simmer for about 7 minutes. Meanwhile put the butter into a roasting pan and put in the oven to melt.
Once the potatoes have simmered for 7 minutes, drain them and dry them thoroughly. Dry them in the original pan over very low heat. When they have dried, put the lid back on the pan and shake the potatoes vigorously. This roughs up the outsides and helps create a really nice crunchy crust. Tip the potatoes into the melted butter and make sure they are coated on all sides. Put into the oven and roast for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, turn the potatoes over so that they brown evenly, and put back into the oven for another 25 or so minutes. Depends on the size of the potatoes. They are cooked when the outside is evenly brown and crunchy.

Green Beans
Ingredients
2 slices of bacon across into 1/4 inch strips
1lb green beans topped and tailed and cut on the bias into 1 inch lengths

Method
In a lidded skillet over low heat, gently render the fat from the bacon. Once the fat has rendered, but before the bacon is crisp, turn the heat up to medium and add the green beans. Stir the beans and bacon until the beans are covered in a thin layer of bacon fat. Add 1/2 cup of water to the pan, put the lid on, and turn the heat to low. Allow the beans to stem for about 7 minutes - until the water has completely evaporated. Serve immediately.
Note there is no reason to add any salt, the bacon is probably salty enough.

French Salad...

Well the idea came from time spent in France a couple of years ago. I often say that, "Life is too short to eat salad", but of course there are salads and then there are SALADS.

I do like composed salads where the ingredients play off each other and especially those that contain potatoes.

So here goes a master list and technique for a really tasty composed salad. A bit fiddly, but fits well into my 45 minute window.

Almost hard cooked eggs (1 1/2 per person, cut vertically into quarters)
A cooked protein (pork belly lardons, guanciale, flank steak, tuna, chicken)
Boiled red potatoes - skin on, but cut into 1 inch chunks. Best if you can buy them that size
A soft cheese (Brie, Epoisse, even Roquefort, Tallegio, soft goat cheese...)
A dressing (normally a simple vinaigrette)
Spring onions or scallions
Some suitable salad greens. I like to use Mesclun, but pretty much any greens will work.

Simmer the potatoes until they are cooked. With about 7 minutes to go with the potatoes, put the eggs into the water. Eggs in the US are washed, so I don't think there is anything to be concerned about. Anyway the temp is 212 and the eggs will be in for 7 minutes.

Take the eggs out, place immediately in lots of cold water. Strain the potatoes, allow to cool for about 5 minutes (they should still be warm)and toss with the vinaigrette. Slice the eggs into the vertical quarters.

Put the greens into the bowl with the potatoes and vinaigrette. Toss. Note dressing the salad this way means you use less dressing than pouring the dressing over the greens. My waist line appreciates it!

Compose the salad, adding whatever ingredients you want - making sure that you mix in the protein. For example you might want to add roasted red peppers, or tomatoes, - you certainly want something red in there. Radishes work. Cooled steamed green beans are nice as well. They can be steamed on top of the potatoes.

Finish the salad with the cheese, eggs and green onions as decorations. You can make this a mound of salad in a large bowl for family style eating, or do them individually.

There are no quantities in here because it really doesn't matter a whole lot. Just make sure that it isn't all lettuce! The potatoes in vinaigrette really make this dish.