Braised Celery and Radicchio Salad with Perfect Roast Chicken
This salad is extra delicious thanks to the addition of the lemony chicken juices from the roasting pan. Never let the flavors on the bottom of a roasting pan go to waste! Be sure to let the celery cool before slicing and incorporating into the salad.
» Serves 4
Chicken
One 3- to 4-pound chicken
½ lemon, very thinly sliced
3 or 4 big sprigs each thyme and rosemary
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
Salad
1 cup braised celery (see sidebar), cooled and cut on an angle into ½-inch-thick slices
½ medium head radicchio, cut into ½-inch-wide ribbons
1 large handful flat-leaf parsley leaves
¼ red onion, thinly sliced
1 lemon, halved
Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
1 to 2 cups Torn Croutons
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Extra-virgin olive oil
For the chicken: Heat the oven to 400°F.
With a pair of kitchen scissors or a sharp knife, cut along each side of the chicken’s backbone to cut it out completely. Flip the chicken over breast side up and push down with the heel of your hand on the breastbone to allow the chicken to lie flat, like you’re cracking open a hard-back book.
Arrange the lemon slices on a rimmed baking sheet or a roasting pan to cover the area that the chicken will be positioned on. Top with the herbs. Season both sides of the chicken generously with salt and pepper and lay the chicken skin side up on top of the flavorings. Smear the butter on the surface.
Roast the chicken until the flesh on the thickest part of the thigh is very tender when poked with a knife, the juices don’t come out pink, and/or the temperature of the thigh registers 170°F. This should take 40 to 50 minutes.
When the chicken is done, transfer it to a platter or tray to cool. Carefully pour the chicken fat from the pan (reserve it for cooking potatoes later). Pluck off the lemon and herbs. Discard the herbs, but if the lemon slices are tasty, you can chop them and add to the salad. Add a few spoonfuls of water to the pan and scrape and stir to dissolve the cooked-on juices.
for the salad: Put the celery, radicchio, parsley, and onion (and roasted lemon, if using) into a big bowl and toss. Pour on the deglazed chicken roasting juices and squeeze the juice from half the lemon and toss again. Taste and season with pepper and salt if needed—the celery and chicken juices will already be salty, so you might not need much.
Add the croutons and grated Parmigiano and toss again. Taste again, adjust the seasoning, and finish with a drizzle of olive oil.
Cut the chicken into pieces and arrange on a platter. Serve the salad on the same platter or on another one. Serve on the warm side of room temperature.
Braised Celery Having some simply braised celery on hand allows you to add a flavor punch to so many salads, soups, pastas, and more. Separate the stalks and arrange in a shallow baking dish. Add about ¼ cup dry white wine, ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, a big pinch of salt, a few smashed garlic cloves, a pinch of dried chile flakes, and some thyme sprigs. Cover with foil and bake at 375°F until the celery is silky and tender.
Fennel
Fennel is a love-it or hate-it vegetable because of its mild licorice flavor. I’m in the love-it camp, as is much of the Mediterranean, where it’s used in plenty of dishes—especially with seafood.
Choosing by feel. You won’t be treated to many varieties of fennel in the market, so just select the bulbs that look young and tightly compacted, and avoid anything that feels leathery or fibrous on the surface.
Three in one. In the grocery store, you’ll often get just the trimmed bulb, but at the farmers’ market, you’ll get the bulb with the stalks and fronds still attached, and each part has a use. The stalks are flavorful but quite tough and fibrous, so you can either pickle them or toss them into a stock. If the fronds are attached, I’ll snip them off and use as I would fresh dill or other tender herb. Unless we’re talking about wild fennel, whose licorice flavor is potent, fennel fronds aren’t intensely flavored, but they can add an herbal note to a salad or salsa verde. And of course the bulb is where most of the action is.
Trim. To get a fennel bulb ready for cooking, cut off the stalks and trim the bulb to remove the toughest part of the core; if the feathery fronds look nice, trim them off to use as you would an herb. If the fennel isn’t in its prime, the outer layer may be stringy. If so, peel off a thin outer layer using a vegetable peeler. You can now continue with your recipe, either slicing the whole bulb or halving it and going from there.
Fennel, raw and cooked. Fennel is fibrous, so slice it very thinly when eating it raw. I use shaved raw fennel in loads of salads, but I do love to cook with it as well. Cooked fennel gets tender when allowed to completely soften, though its delicate flavor notes can fade. I usually amp up the flavor with herbs, salty olives, and of course plenty of good olive oil.
Maximize the crunch. When serving fennel raw, I like to use the same ice water trick I use with scallions. Soak the slices in ice water for about 20 minutes, then drain and pat dry.
Shaving fennel: Halve the bulb lengthwise, keeping the core intact. Use a mandoline to create wafer-thin slices, ideal for raw dishes.
Chilled Seafood Salad with Fennel, Radish, Basil, and Crème Fraîche
When you get to the seafood counter, choose whatever looks pristine and delicious—crab, white-fleshed fish, shrimp, smoked trout, and poached or grilled scallops are some of my favorites. If you’d like to keep it vegetarian, you can add some sliced, salted cucumbers, some boiled new potatoes, or both. The key is to have all the ingredients refreshingly cold.
» Serves 6
2 fennel bulbs (about 2 pounds total, untrimmed weight), stalks and fronds trimmed off, bulbs trimmed
1 bunch radishes, with their green tops if pristine
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, halved
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
½ teaspoon dried chile flakes
½ cup crème fraîche
½ cup lightly packed mixed fresh herbs (aim for three of these four: chives, tarragon, parsley, dill)
¼ cup capers, rinsed and drained
About ¾ pound cooked seafood, preferably a mix of white-fleshed fish, shellfish, squid
If the fennel looks fibrous, peel off a thin outer layer using a vegetable peeler. Use a mandoline to thinly slice the bulbs lengthwise through the core. If you don’t have a mandoline, use a very sharp knife and slice as thin as you can.
Soak the fennel slices in a bowl of ice water for about 20 minutes. This will crisp them nicely.
If the radish tops look fresh and pristine, cut them off. (If they are scraggly or yellowed, skip the greens altogether.) Wash them in a few changes of cool water until there’s no more grit, then spin or pat them dry.
Heat a glug of olive oil in a small skillet over medium-high heat and add the greens. Season nicely with salt and sauté until they’re tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Give them a squeeze of lemon juice. Chop them roughly and then chill in the fridge while you finish the salad.
Scrub the radishes, trim the tops and bottoms, and very thinly slice them.
Drain the fennel slices and dry them well with paper towels or a clean kitchen towel. Pile them into a large bowl with the radishes, radish greens (if using), more lemon juice, the lemon zest, chile flakes, and a generous seasoning of salt and black pepper and toss well. Add the crème fraîche, herbs, and capers and toss again. Taste and adjust with more salt, black pepper, chile flakes, or lemon juice until the salad is lovely and bright.
Add the seafood and carefully fold everything together so you don’t break up the seafood too much. Spread the salad on a platter and drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Serve cold.
Roasted Fennel with Apples, Taleggio Cheese, and Almonds
I created this dish by accident while working on the farm. I was making dinner and realized I didn’t have enough fennel for the dish I had planned to make. But I had apples, and so in they went. It has been a go-to recipe ever since, and in retrospect, it would have not been as good with just fennel. That’s what good cooking is about: adapting, trusting your instincts, and being willing to fail.
» Serves 6
Extra-virgin olive oil
½ pound fennel sausage (or ½ pound mild Italian sausage plus ½ teaspoon fennel seeds), bulk or with casings removed
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
½ teaspoon dried chile flakes
1½ pounds fennel (2 medium bulbs), stalks and root end trimmed, cut lengthwise into eighths
1 large apple (8 ounces), such as Braeburn or Fuji, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
½ cup almonds, toasted
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
6 ounces Taleggio cheese, rind trimmed off and torn into little bits (this cheese is too soft to actually grate)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup Dried Breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Heat the oven to 375°F.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, add 1 teaspoon olive oil, then add the sausage (if using the mild Italian, add the fennel seeds, too). Cook until it’s no longer pink, about 5 minutes, breaking it up with your tongs or a spoon so it’s in pieces about the size of popcorn. Scoop it out of the pan and set aside.
Reduce the heat to medium-low, add 1 tablespoon oil and the smashed garlic, and cook slowly to toast the garlic so it’s very soft, fragrant, and nicely golden brown—but not burnt—about 5 minutes. Add the chile flakes and toast for another few seconds, then add the sliced fennel. Pour ⅓ cup water into the pan and cover it, adjusting the heat so the fennel steams and simmers. Check the fennel every few minutes, adding a bit more water when the first amount has evaporated.
Continue cooking like this until the fennel is about three-quarters of the way cooked through and is getting tender but not super soft, about 10 minutes. If there’s any remaining water when the fennel is cooked, increase the heat to evaporate it quickly.
Return the sausage to the pan and add the apples, almonds, thyme, and half the Taleggio. Toss and then season generously with salt and black pepper.
Pile this into a 2- to 3-quart baking dish, top with the remaining cheese and the breadcrumbs, and dot with the butter. Bake until the ingredients are hot all the way through and the cheese is melting and starting to sizzle, 30 to 35 minutes.
Let the casserole rest for about 5 minutes and then serve hot.
Fennel Two Ways with Mussels and Couscous
I love the anise-licorice flavor of fennel, and the fennel seed in the finocchiona (fennel salami) adds even more of that flavor—an example of how using one ingredient in two different ways in the same dish brings complexity. This dish is good for entertaining because it’s fun to eat with your hands—use an empty mussel shell to scoop up the couscous and all the goodness of the mussel liquor, chiles, and citrus. You can also make it without the couscous and serve some grilled bread to dip into the sauce.
» Serves 4
Kosher salt
1 cup Israeli couscous or fregola
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 pound fennel (1 large bulb), stalks trimmed off, bulb halved, cored, and cut into ¼-inch slices
½ teaspoon dried chile flakes
1 pound mussels, scrubbed and debearded
¼ pound unsliced finocchiona, casings cut away, halved lengthwise, and cut into ¼-inch half-moon slices (if you buy presliced salami, cut into halves or quarters)
½ cup dry, unoaked white wine
1 cup lightly packed flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 teaspoon finely grated orange or tangerine zest
½ cup fresh orange or tangerine juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil and add salt until it tastes like the sea. Add the couscous and boil until barely al dente, about a minute shy of the package directions. Drain well and toss in a bit of olive oil. Set aside.
Pour ¼ cup olive oil into a large skillet or Dutch oven, heat over medium heat, add the garlic, and cook until the garlic is very soft, fragrant, and nicely golden brown—but not burnt—about 5 minutes.
Scoop out the garlic and set it aside so it doesn’t burn. Add the fennel, season with ½ teaspoon salt, and cook over medium heat until it is tender, but not mushy, 12 to 15 minutes.
Increase the heat to medium-high and add the chile flakes, mussels, and finocchiona. Return the toasted garlic to the pan, pour in the wine, cover the pan, and cook, shaking the pan now and then, until the mussels have all opened, about 5 minutes. If some are not yet open, give it another couple of minutes, but at that point, discard any unopened mussels.
Add the parsley, orange zest, orange juice, and butter and shake to incorporate. Taste and add more salt or chile flakes if you like. Fold in the couscous, cover the pan, and remove from the heat. Let the couscous warm up for a minute or two. Uncover, tumble everything around to fluff and distribute the couscous, drizzle with olive oil, and serve right away.
Potatoes (Early Season)
Everyone has eaten a potato, but not everyone has eaten a truly new potato, freshly dug from the soil just days—or even hours—before serving. Once you do, your life is forever changed, because a new potato is everything good about a potato but more delicate, sweeter, and refined.
Size doesn’t matter. Early-season new potatoes are usually small because they haven’t had much time to grow, but smaller isn’t necessarily better. A lemon-size potato could be every bit as creamy and tender as a walnut-size one. Aim to pick potatoes of similar size, though, which will make prepping and cooking easier. (See mature potatoes.)
You’ll see red, blue, yellow, and white varieties as new potatoes, and while I find white potatoes generally denser and creamier, all potatoes are good at this early-summer stage. New blues can be intensely sweet and densely creamy. A couple of my favorites that do well in the Pacific Northwest, where I live, are red Rose Golds, white Carolas, and yellow German Butterballs.
Don’t be fooled into thinking a fingerling potato is a new potato. Even when fully mature, fingerlings are very small, and usually long and thin, hence the name. A tiny fingerling can be as old as a big storage potato, with none of the finesse of a new potato.
Don’t touch that peeler. One of the beauties of a new potato is its undeveloped skin. That means no peeling, folks. In fact, never peel a new potato, unless there’s a bad spot. Simply rinse them, and if the skins seem at all tough, just scrub them a bit or scrape them with the back of a knife.
Keep it dark and cool. Store your new potatoes in a loosely closed paper bag—no plastic, please—in a cupboard or other darkish place. If your house is very hot or humid, it’s fine to store new potatoes in the refrigerator. However, don’t put late-season potatoes in the refrigerator, because the cold converts the potato’s starches into sugar. A new potato isn’t very starchy to begin with, so the flavor won’t change radically, but older potatoes can become oddly sweet and they will darken too much when cooking because of the high sugar content.
Cook simply, but do cook. Potatoes are one of the few vegetables that I don’t suggest you eat raw. They aren’t toxic, but they’re not too tasty and they can give you indigestion. But simple cooking methods are best for these early-season potatoes—think boiling, steaming, and pan-roasting—and delicately flavor w
ith fresh herbs.
In the kitchen To make your potato salads deeply flavorful, season the potatoes while they are still warm so that they will absorb the dressing through to the center.
Smashed New Potatoes with Lemon and Lots of Olive Oil
This side dish is so perfect on its own that I hesitate to suggest any additions, but if you must, a handful of freshly picked herbs—especially chives and dill—is fantastic.
» Serves 4
Kosher salt
1½ pounds new potatoes, rinsed and just lightly scrubbed if they need it
Freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, halved
Extra-virgin olive oil
Put the potatoes in a pot and add cold water to cover by 2 inches. Add salt until the water tastes like the sea. Bring to a gentle boil and boil the potatoes until they are very tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
With a ladle or a measuring cup, scoop out about ½ cup of the cooking water and drain the potatoes well. Put them back in the pot and crush them using a potato masher or a big fork or a wooden spoon. Squeeze on the lemon juice, season with ½ teaspoon salt and many twists of pepper, and add ¼ cup olive oil. Sprinkle on a tablespoon or so of the cooking water and crush a few more times and then taste. Adjust with more lemon, salt, pepper, or olive oil until the flavor is irresistible. Add a bit more cooking water if you like in order to make the texture chunky but a bit creamy.
MORE WAYS:
Make amazing hash browns: Shape the potatoes into little pucks, dip the top and bottom in breadcrumbs, and shallow-fry in a blend of oil and butter until browned and crisp.
Load it up for a gutsy version: Right before final seasoning, fold in chopped pitted olives, capers, and chopped scallions.
Six Seasons Page 15