Tuesday, 11 March 2008

Blood Orange and Beet Root Salad

I recenctly had truly wonderful beet salad at Lucques. Returning to Zurich, I find that blood oranges are in season and it got me thinking about a variation of this.

Recover the fruit of five blood oranges and slice (~3mm)
Add salt (I find the large grains of Camargue salt work well) and a thick baslsamic vinegar
Add cubed roasted beets
Cover with finely crumbled feta cheese
Sprinkle with thin strips of peppermint

(more here)

Posted by james at 12:13 PM in Food and Drink

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Sunday, 6 May 2007

Spicy fish with cilantro pesto

Powder an equal weight of chipotle chile and chile de arbol according to taste. I use an old coffee grinder (pictured) which works quite well; a food processor might also work (but I have never tried). I like things quite spicey so I use about 8 grams of each.

Mix with olive oil, about 25 or 30 grams, slather the fish and wait about an hour. I have tried this with a few different varieties of fish; I think that Salmon works the best.

Place in a mortar:

120 grams finely chopped cilantro
40 grams toasted pine nuts
70 grams lime juice
40 grams good olive oil
5 grams mint
salt to taste

and mash until it has a smooth uniform consistency. This tends to take me about half an hour (I never remeber to chop the cilanto finely enough which makes it take longer).

Grill the fish and serve.

This particular dish goes nicely with a salad creation of Daniela's: a bed of shaved fennel coated in a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and anise seeds (lavender works nicely in place of the anise seeds) covered with thinly sliced avocado.

Posted by james at 11:28 AM in Food and Drink

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Saturday, 5 May 2007

Hendricks Gin Martini

I went downtown this afternoon to buy some gin as I was in a special mood for a martini. As I browsed my options, a particular gin was disrecommended to another customer for use in a gin and tonic because "it's just too beautiful to use in a mixed drink". My ears perked and I needed to buy a bottle. The gin was Hendrick's and it does indeed make a lovely martini-- oddly with a cucumber slice rather than an olive, cocktail onion or twist of lemon peel (though the last seems to work reasonably). I used a 15 to 1 ratio with Noilly Pratt as the vermouth (I doubt that this actually counts as a "mixed drink"). The gin botanicals are a mixture of the standard Juniper, in a subtle form, together with cucumber (a cousin of the melon and a much under-appreciated fruit) and rose. I have a new favorite gin.

Posted by james at 6:33 PM in Food and Drink

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Monday, 26 February 2007

Blood orange, parsley, pine nut and Parmigiano salad

The name pretty much describes the salad... honestly, this is an excuse to try out a camera that a friend lent to me. The steps are:

Toast 45 grams pine nuts. In my experience, toasting pine nuts takes all of my attention. If I do anything else at the same time, I end up with burned pine nuts.
Remove the skin of three blood oranges with a knife
Slice the oranges transversally (removing the seeds) about 3mm thick
Arrange on a plate adding salt and pepper to taste
Cover with coarsely chopped broad parsley (~15 grams)
Cover with pine nuts
Drizzle with balsamic vingegar.
Cover with shaved Parmigiano cheese (I find a potato peeler useful for this)