Who Knew Grocery Shopping Could Be Such an Ordeal?

 What’s cooking? Skillet Meatballs with Nectarines and Basil

My first time ordering after the “shelter in place” advisory, I used a service called Favor. It’s online, and once you enter your grocery list, they send an eager young person to the store with it, and the packages get delivered to your house. Because we were all in a fog about the virus and how you could catch it, I was so grateful for the service that the first couple of times, I tipped the young person $20 for a $30 order. Within a couple of weeks, though, the young people got a little less eager and the quality of the delivery started slipping – once, the eager young person actually decided he/she wasn’t interested in my order and I had to start over. When they did deliver, I’d get some of what I ordered, and sometimes an off-brand of what I ordered. You can imagine that when the Kitchen Goddess requests a brand, she expects to get that brand.

I tried going (masked) into the store, at “senior” hours, but the proximity to other people made me so anxious that the minute I walked back into the house, I’d have to take off all my clothes and put everything into the laundry. And shower and take a nap, followed by wiping down every item I bought. The process took pretty much the full day.

So I switched to a curbside pickup that my usual store offers, and even now, I am very grateful for that option. But – not surprisingly – the store likes to sell their house brands more than anything else, and I notice that they’ve gradually shifted the online offerings to skew in that direction. I know they have that other stuff – my beloved national brands – because I’ve purchased them in that store pre-Covid.

But I stuck with it until they started bagging things according to where they came from around the store: dairy, one bag; cookies/chips, one bag; cleaning supplies, one bag. And on and on. One curbside delivery I got had 36 items and they used 14 plastic bags! No matter how hard I try, I can’t get them to use paper and bag more efficiently.

Then one day, the Kitchen Goddess admitted to herself that she yearned – actually yearned – to touch the fruits and veggies she was buying. And it turns out that if you wear a mask and shop at off hours and are careful about the way you move around the stores, it’s not nearly as stressful as it once was. Of course, we’re still wiping down the packaged goods and rinsing the fruits (except the berries) in soapy water, but we’re happy to pay that price for safety. It’s a learning curve.

*  *  *

Even with all this shopping anxiety – and yes, the KG is still having shopping anxiety – I’ve been thinking more about what’s seasonal in this transition between summer and fall. I’m still seeing stone fruit in the bins at my grocery store. I bought some nectarines last week and they were a bit hard, so I put them on a plate in the window of my kitchen, where they got nice and ripe. Then, of course, I liked the look of them on that plate so much that I left them a bit too long for eating out of your hand. That didn’t stop me, though, because I’d found this very nice recipe that cooks them. So the fact that some of the diced pieces were a little less clean cut looking wasn’t a problem.

Stone fruits are really good with pork. Ok, lots of fruits are good with pork. But this recipe, which you can also make with any other ground meat, pulled together a perfect umami/sweet/savory combination of the pork and the nectarines and the basil in my garden. In fact, the original called for peaches, but you have to peel peaches, and the Kitchen Goddess likes to avoid peeling peaches. Nectarines don’t need peeling. Neither do plums, which would also be good in this treatment. Take a look at what’s available at your grocer. And in a pinch, the KG believes that frozen peach slices would work equally well. Once they get cooked, there’s not much difference in the flavor or texture.

I served this dish over rice noodles because it seemed like a fun idea. Having never made rice noodles, I just threw the whole package into the water, and ended up with way more than I needed. Really, a one-cup portion will do just fine per person. The dish would also work well over egg noodles or rice. Regardless of what you use, there’s a definite need for something to soak up that amazing sauce.

Kitchen Goddess note: Rice noodles have about 192 calories per cup; egg noodles have 221. So not much difference, and not much fat in either one, but rice noodles have less. And the fat in rice noodles is unsaturated, which is healthy for you.

Skillet Meatballs with Nectarines and Basil

Adapted from Melissa Clark in The New York Times

Serves 4.

Ingredients
1½ tablespoons fresh ginger, finely grated or minced
3 garlic cloves, grated or minced
1¼ teaspoons of ground cumin
1¼ teaspoons kosher salt
1 pound ground pork (or turkey, or chicken, or beef)
⅓ cup panko or other plain bread crumbs*
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh basil, plus small leaves for garnishing
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons wine (dry white, rosé or red – KG used a dry white), or broth
2 cups diced ripe nectarines (3-4), or peaches, plums, or frozen peach slices
¼ cup thinly sliced shallots (can substitute white onion or scallions)
1 lime
White rice, rice noodles, or egg noodles, for serving

*Kitchen Goddess note: Panko are Japanese-style breadcrumbs, which are made from crustless white bread in a process that produces a flakier crumb than regular breadcrumbs. If you don’t have any, use regular breadcrumbs, but know that the panko absorb less oil, so they produce a lighter and crunchier end product. Unused panko will keep for 6 + months in a Ziploc® bag in the cupboard. The KG loves panko.

Directions
In a small bowl, mix together the ginger, garlic, cumin and salt. In a large bowl, combine the pork, panko, and basil, and add the spice mix. Using your hands, gently mix everything together, trying not to squeeze or overwork the meat, to keep it tender. Form the mixture into meatballs about 1¼ inches in diameter.

Heat a large (not non-stick) skillet over medium-high, and add the oil. When the oil begins to shimmer, add the meatballs in one layer. Yes, they will stick to the pan at first, so place them carefully. After a minute or two, a browned crust will develop and the pan will get hot enough that you can turn the meatballs... to a position where they’ll stick again! Don’t try to turn them immediately after they stick. Wait a minute or two, then turn again. Once the meatballs have developed a sort of crust over most of their surface, you can easily shake the pan a few times to move them around, further developing a nice evenly crusty exterior. (This shaking the pan while you cook produces for the KG a cool feeling that she really knows what she’s doing. Maybe it will do that for you, too!) Cook the meatballs, turning and shaking the pan, until they are browned all over, 5 to 7 minutes.

Kitchen Goddess note on cooking protein in a skillet/sauté pan: The best way to cook any protein in a pan is to let it sit for a bit after you place it – even though there’s oil in the pan. Here’s what Cook’s Illustrated says about that: “Meat sticks during cooking when the sulfur atoms in the protein react with the metal atoms in the pan, forming a strong chemical bond that fuses the meat to the metal. Once the pan becomes hot enough, the link between the protein and the metal will loosen, and the bond will eventually break.” So now you know.

When the meatballs are sufficiently browned, pour the wine into the skillet and move the meatballs over to one side of the pan, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom (known as the fond – remember fond? It’s the magic ingredient in the sauce, and you don’t get it with a Teflon pan.)

To the empty side of pan, add the nectarines, a pinch of salt and 2 tablespoons of water. When the fruit reaches a simmer, cover the pan, lower the heat to medium, and let it all cook another 5-10 minutes, until the meatballs are no longer pink at their centers, and the peaches are juicy and tender.

Uncover the pan. If there appears to be more liquid than you like, let it cook down for another 1-2 minutes. The fruit should break down into a chunky sauce. If your fruit was less than fully ripe, you may need a few extra minutes.

Stir the shallots/onions into the pan for another 1-2 minutes, until they’re visibly soft. Squeeze the juice from half the lime over everything, then taste and add salt and/or lime juice, as needed. (Tart fruit will likely need less lime juice than sweet.)

Serve the meatballs over rice or noodles (or rice noodles!) with a wedge of lime, and garnished with small or torn basil leaves.

Bon appétit!

Must Be the Season of the Fish What’s cooking? Simple Salmon Cakes and Joy’s Tartar Sauce

Well, folks, it’s Lent. The season of denial that leads to character building. Maybe that’s my problem, because the minute I decide I’m not going to have a particular food, about five seconds later, I start obsessing over it. Ways to cook it, what to serve it with,... One year, I tried eliminating chocolate from my diet, and within hours, ... well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. Maybe I can hope that, having worked on my character all these years, I can stop building and just do some routine maintenance: spackling, re-grouting, touch-up painting,... and that’s just on my physical appearance. Let’s face it: about the only things I’m good at denying myself are the ones I’m not crazy about in the first place, and I know that backdoor approach isn’t really the point.

But everyone eats fish during Lent. The Pope says no meat on Ash Wednesday and every Friday until Easter. So even though I’m not Catholic, that sounds like a good thing. Fish is great for you, and I’ve got a few really good ways to prepare it. One of which, for salmon cakes, I will share with you today! (The rest will be coming later in Lent. The waiting is a character-building thing I will help you with.)

The recipe for salmon cakes came to me in one of the regular emails I get from the folks at America’s Test Kitchen, which is somehow the same and yet somehow different from Cook’s Illustrated. Whatever. I get these missives because I pay for them, which I wouldn’t do if it were just the recipes, as I find most of the dishes a bit boring and underseasoned. But the people at ATK/Cook’s have some good thoughts about cooking processes and various cooking equipment, and they test their ideas until someone cries “uncle!” So they’re a reliable resource, if a bit tyrannical in their instructions. (When I read that I should pat the salmon mixture “into disk measuring 2¾ inches in diameter and 1 inch high,” I got an uncomfortable sensation of being part of Stalin’s kitchen staff.)

Nevertheless, I must say that these salmon cakes looked and tasted terrific. I’ve started having what I call “Guinea Pig Dinners,” for which I invite good friends – people who know me well and won’t mind if I’m wearing my sweats when they arrive – and warn them that I’m trying out recipes. So it could happen – though it hasn’t so far – that we have to order pizza in the end. The salmon cakes starred as the entrée for my latest Guinea Pig Dinner, and were a huge hit.

They key here is to start with good, fresh salmon. Find out which days your grocer gets his fish delivered and go then. You can buy some today and not cook it until tomorrow, but don’t hang onto it for two days unless it’s been flash frozen. And ask the fishmonger if you can smell it – as with chicken, good, fresh fish will not smell like anything. If it smells fishy, buy something else.

The second key is to use a food processor and process the salmon just enough to reduce it to pieces about ¼-inch square and generally uniform in size. Think steak tartare, only with salmon – the best isn’t made from ground beef, but with beef cut into tiny dice. Which gives the cakes a texture you don’t often find with fish cakes: meaty and not gummy, tender and moist inside and crispy outside, with a hint of the parsley and other ingredients of the mix. Because they cooked quickly and don’t have a lot of breading, they also soak up little of the oil. I cooked 11 cakes (two batches) in ½ cup of oil and had at least half of it left in the pan.

Kitchen Goddess note about preparing the salmon: If you buy a salmon fillet with the skin on, buy more than you need. I needed 1½ pounds of salmon, so I bought 1¾ pounds with the skin on. You’ll want to remove not only the skin but the thin, gray layer of muscle just underneath the skin. It’s not hard – just takes a little work. A tip from YouTube: start at the tail end of the fillet and use a paper towel to hold onto the skin (which is slippery) as you slice between the skin and the flesh. Or do what the Kitchen Goddess plans to do, and see if the fishmonger won’t do it for you. Be sure to smile nicely when you ask.

What I particularly liked about this recipe was that I could do the labor-intensive part – cutting up the salmon and mixing it with the other ingredients – ahead of time. Then when we were ready to eat, it took almost no time to scoop the mixture into patties, coat the cakes in panko (no egg mixture – another plus!), and sauté them. I could probably have formed the patties ahead as well, but that part took no more than a couple of minutes. For maximum crispness, you don’t want the panko crust to go onto the raw patties until the very last minute.

Lemon wedges are a nice accompaniment, but I served mine with my friend Joy’s tartar sauce, which is hands down the best I’ve ever had. Tart and fresh, with only a hint of sweetness from the mayo, it’s almost good enough to eat on its own.

Simple Salmon Cakes

Adapted from America’s Test Kitchen.

Makes about 11 cakes.

6 tablespoons plus 2 cups panko bread crumbs
4 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 large scallion, thinly sliced
1 large shallot, minced
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1¼ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon pepper
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 skinless salmon fillet (about 1¾ pounds)
½ cup vegetable oil

Combine 6 tablespoons panko with the parsley, mayonnaise, lemon juice, scallion, shallot, mustard, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a large bowl.

Cut the salmon into 1-inch cubes and divide them into two batches. Pulse each batch in a food processor until coarsely chopped into ¼-inch pieces. (You’ll need 3-4 pulses of about 2 seconds each.) Transfer the processed salmon to the bowl with the other ingredients and gently combine them until the mix is uniform. At this point, you may cover the bowl and refrigerate it until you are ready to cook the fish. Or you can do the next step and refrigerate the unbreaded cakes.

Place remaining 2 cups of panko in a shallow bowl. Using a ⅓-cup measure, scoop a level amount of the salmon mixture into a patty and set it on a baking sheet; repeat until all the mixture is used.

One at a time, transfer each cake to the bowl of panko and gently coat it in the crumbs while patting it into a disk about an inch high. Return the coated cakes to the baking sheet.

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Carefully place the cakes into the skillet and let them cook undisturbed for 2 minutes, at which point they should be golden brown. Using two spatulas to maneuver the cakes, flip them to the other side and sauté another 2 minutes until the second side is also golden brown. Remove the cakes to a plate lined with paper towels to drain. If you have too many cakes for a single batch, place an aluminum foil tent over the first batch while the second batch cooks.

Serve immediately, accompanied by lemon wedges and/or tartar sauce.

Kitchen Goddess notes on the tartar sauce: (1) Make the tartar sauce at least an hour and a half before you serve it, so that the flavors can bloom. (2) For the herbs, I don’t think there’s any comparison between the flavor of fresh parsley and dried, so treat yourself to a bunch of parsley. Rinse it off, spin it dry, roll it in paper towels, and stuff it into a zip-lock bag, and it’ll last at least a week. FYI, the Kitchen Goddess always has fresh parsley in the crisper. Tarragon is another thing altogether, so if you have some growing in your garden or you bought some for another reason, by all means use fresh. But I wouldn’t buy any just to get a single tablespoon of the stuff, in which case dried tarragon is fine. (3) The sauce will keep for at least a week in the fridge, so you may want to double it to have available for next Friday’s fish.

Joy’s Tartar Sauce

Makes about 1½ cups.

1 cup mayonnaise, light or regular
1 tablespoon fresh tarragon, chopped (or a rounded teaspoon of dried tarragon)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons heavy cream (or half-and-half)
2 tablespoons dry white wine
1-2 tablespoons minced scallion
1 tablespoon capers, drained, plus ½ teaspoon of the juice
2-3 tablespoons dill pickle relish
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Mix thoroughly, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Monkey See, Monkey Do, or How I Overcame My Fear of Frying What's cooking? Thai Sweet and Spicy Wings and Turnip & Cabbage Slaw with Yogurt Dressing

It was the sort of comment you make without thinking. And for me, that always means trouble.

I was just forwarding a recipe to our friends, Bob and Laurie, who are avid fans of both chicken wings and Thai food.

“This looks good and really easy,” I emailed, attaching a link to a video in which a professional chef was featured making one of his restaurant’s most popular dishes. “I thought you might want to try it.” Then I added in a moment clearly without real thought, “I would even offer my kitchen up for the test...”

“Excellent,” came the reply. “I vote we pick one of our recipes and cook up a mixed batch and sample!”

So now I was stuck. Hmmm, how hard can it be, I thought. I’d only watched the video once and it did look easy. But when I went back to the site, it turns out that the only thing there was a video of the chef cooking it – no recipe, no measurements, no guidelines other than what the guy said as he blithely whirled away in his professional kitchen.