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Five Ways to Cook Asparagus (and Other Recipes): The Art and Practice of Making Dinner
Peter Miller
By
Published: Jul 31, 2018
Category:
Food and Wine
Just when you think you will never need another cookbook — you have Julia Child and Marcella Hazan and Patricia Wells and Canal House Cooks Every Day and V Is for Vegetables — along comes a cookbook that is so simple and smart you not only want one for your kitchen, you want your cooking-challenged loved ones to have it.
“Five Ways to Cook Asparagus (and Other Recipes): The Art and Practice of Making Dinner” is exactly as described. Five types of foods to keep in stock in the larder (dairy products, greens, olive oils and vinegars, breads, and fruits). Five recipes for each (asparagus, broccoli, carrots, onions, and cauliflower). Five recipes for rice, quinoa/couscous, spaghetti, lentils, and beans. Five birds, beasts, fish. Five weekend meals. Five essential skills.
The last time we heard from Peter Miller, he was all about lunch, which was a shared ritual at his bookstore. That book, Lunch at the Shop: The Art and Practice of the Midday Meal, is a delight. If he has now moved on to the next food event, he has good reasons. The first reason is practical:
This is a book about making dinner — about making it in real time and preparing it under real conditions. The meals are obviously important, but often there is not time to do careful shopping, planning, or preparation. There may only be time to get the meal ready.
The second reason is just as reality-based:
I do not stack recipes on end, like dominoes, to take me through the week and weekend — that, to me, would be an assignment. Instead, I begin with some questions: What can I get, what is out there, where are we, what is the season, what is the weather, what is the mood? How much time will I have to cook, to shop? What would please me, and what will please the people for whom I am cooking?
But then Miller steps up and admits that this cookbook is about more than the need to make dinner during the five nights of the work week: “A good cookbook can be more important for its optimism than its recipes.” Optimism? That’s when I really looked at it. The practical binding, with no unnecessary flap cover. The photographs by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton, the Canal House Cooks, who long ago mastered the marriage of elegance and simplicity. And Miller’s wonderfully precise prose, as if a NASA engineer wrote poetry in his spare time. And, of course, the recipes. [To buy the hardcover from Amazon, click here. For the shockingly expensive Kindle edition, click here.]
This is your reward for buying and using this book:
I am not trying to make anything simpler. I am trying to make it possible, and more of a pleasure. If you can make this recipe, then you can make another, and if you can do that, then ten more things will come to mind…. If you do make your own dinners, if you practice it, get good at it, and start to cook intuitively, if you start to believe it, and shop for it, and cook at night for it, if you look it right in the eye and make sense of it, then you will have something. You will be a partner to seasons and produce and food culture, a quiet director of smells and colors, habits, and tastes, a part of history and invention. At its best, you are cooking to use the past, to sustain the present, and to account for the future.
And now, some recipes…
Parmigiano-Reggiano and the Egg
Serves 1
Sometimes, if I have good fresh eggs, some country bread, and a fresh piece of Parmesan, I will make this, late at night or early in the morning, and remind myself again the precise pleasure of true Parmesan.
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 large fresh organic egg
2 slices thick country bread
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ pound (115 g) chunk of fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano
Salt and fresh cracked black pepper
Bring a shallow saucepan of water to a boil. Add the vinegar, turn the heat off, and gently crack the egg into the pan. Cover and let it rest for 4 minutes, precisely.
Meanwhile, toast the bread, butter it well, and lay a slice on a warmed plate. Take the poached egg out with a slotted spoon, and lay it on one slice of bread. Quickly, while the egg is hot, grate some of the cheese over the whole piece so it can slightly melt. Grate the cheese generously. You will not need the whole piece of cheese—the extra is in case other people see you and want one.
Salt and pepper it well, cut into four sections, and enjoy. The extra bread is for mop-up.
Carrots Roasted with Herbs
Serves 2 to 4
If you serve these carrots to guests as hors d’oeuvres, you will get the empty plate right back. Roasted carrots love being a solo performer—people then will pay attention to the taste. They are, as well, a wonderful side dish to any main course. Use early carrots, if you can get them. I have an old roasting pan, blackened on its exterior, and roasting carrots—or bread crumbs, or bell peppers—is what keeps it employed.
1 pound (455 g) carrots
Sea salt
¼ cup (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
Pinch of Aleppo pepper (pul biber) or cayenne
6 to 8 sprigs fresh thyme
Flaky sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper
Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C).
Cut the carrots into 4- to 6-inch (10- to 15-cm) lengths and halve them lengthwise. Toss the carrots, a good pinch of sea salt, and the olive oil in a stainless-steel bowl. Add the Aleppo pepper. Turn out the carrots into a roasting pan and toss half the thyme on top.
Roast for 10 minutes, then give the pan a good shake so the carrots roll about. Ten minutes later, turn the oven temperature down to 300°F (150°C) and shake the pan again. Bake for 10 minutes more (for a total of 30 minutes), until the carrots are a little blackened and softened.
Pull them out of the oven and lay them willy-nilly on a white dinner plate, with a little extra olive oil, some cracked black pepper, the rest of the thyme, and a visible scattering of flaky sea salt.
Cauliflower Baked in Butter and Parmesan
Serves 4
This dish will help convert anyone who has steered clear of cauliflower. The melted butter, Parmesan cheese, and salt are somewhat unfair to any sample, but it is still the cauliflower that makes the dish work. Serve it with any kind of seared meat or alongside a vegetable sauté.
1 medium head cauliflower
Sea salt
4 tablespoons (½ stick/55 g) cold, unsalted butter
½ cup (50 g) freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for finishing
Preheat the oven to 400°F (205°C).
Trim the cauliflower and set it in a large bowl of cold water to soak for 10 minutes. Drain it well.
Bring a big pot of water to a boil. Cut an X in the stem end of the cauliflower and put it into the boiling water, X-side down. Cook for 6 minutes, then check the progress by poking the florets with a fork to test for softening. It may need to cook for up to 6 minutes more. When the cauliflower is soft but not mushy, drain it well and let cool a bit. Break the cauliflower head into florets and cut the stem into bite-size pieces; season the lot with salt.
Set a baking dish in the oven for a minute or two to warm. Add 1 tablespoon of the butter to the warmed dish so it melts; tilt the dish so the butter coats the bottom. Sprinkle a pinch of the cheese over the butter and then arrange the cauliflower florets in the dish.
Sprinkle it all well with the remaining cheese and season with a little salt. Cut the remaining 3 tablespoons butter into cubes and dot them over the cauliflower. Roast for 20 minutes, until the cauliflower has browned a little and parts of the grated cheese have hardened.
Sprinkle with even a little more cheese after it comes out of the oven—and perhaps some salt. The salt keeps it all in line.
A Sweet End to the Meal: A Dessert of Fresh Fruit
Serves 4
If you should need a dessert, let it be fresh fruit. Present the fruit both cooked and raw for a simple but endlessly adaptable sweet end to a meal. Make this with any combination of fruit that you like: strawberries, raspberries, peaches, blueberries, apples, pears, etc.
Do not wash raspberries—it steals too much of their taste—and plums are another exception—I slice them but do not peel them, preferring the dark color and taste of their skin.
¼ cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon, if desired
1 cup (TK g) fresh fruit, washed, peeled, and cut into small bite-size pieces
1 pound (TK g) fresh fruit, washed, peeled, and cut into slightly larger bite-size pieces
Lemon juice (optional)
Bring ¼ cup of water and ¼ cup sugar to a slow, soft boil in a saucepan.
Let it cook for 2 minutes until the sugar is combined and then add the 1 cup of small-cut fruit.
Stir the fruit well and let it bubble slightly on medium low heat for 5 to 10 minutes. You want the fruit to break down and soften—but only halfway. Adjust the time based on the type of fruit. (Obviously a ripe blackberry will need less time than a firm apple.) Keep stirring, adding a touch of water if needed, until you have a thickened sauce and the half-softened pieces of fruit. Take the pan off the heat and let the sauce cool.
Put the 1 pound of cut fruit into a ceramic or glass bowl.
Taste a piece. If the fruit is tart, add 1 tablespoon of sugar and stir to combine. If it is fleshy, as an apple or pear, squeeze a tiny bit of lemon juice over the fruit to hold it from browning.
Now construct and assemble. I use small glass plates or shallow bowls, so everything is quite visible. In simplest form, lay 1 tablespoon of the cooked fruit on the surface and arrange the fresh, uncooked pieces on top of it. Finish with a little bit of the sauce from the cooked fruit.
Variations: There are a number of toppings that can be added to the fruit to provide texture and nuance. Here are a few ideas.
Whipping cream: Whip the cream, ¼ cup or so, with 1 tablespoon of sugar, and lay that on top of the fruit, and then a touch of cooked fruit sauce.
Mint: Be cautious or the mint will flavor everything. Tiny, thin slivers can be added as a garnish on top of the fruit, or rub apple slices with the leaf itself.
Fresh granola: Use only 1 teaspoon per serving; granola can be a bully. Sprinkled on top of the fruit and then always lay something over the granola—cream, sauce, or yogurt.
Maple syrup or honey: Use separately, and with similar restraint. Heat them a little, in a double boiler, before using, for then you can drizzle a very thin stream on top and not overwhelm the fruit.
Semi-sweet chocolate: Use a fine grater and true chocolate and apply it in a dusting of no weight. The fruit will find the chocolate, especially the strawberries and raspberries.
Meringues: Crumple a meringue onto the fruit, both for texture and surprise.
Greek yogurt: Denser than cream, it makes a lovely parfait center. Lay the cooked fruit below, some yogurt and raw fruit folded together, and sauce on top. Finish with a tiny drizzle of warm honey.
Shelled walnuts: Heat them first in a dry small sauté pan until warm and then break them apart and apply them at the very end, around the edges, only 3 or 4 pieces per serving.
See what I mean?
