Recipes–Vegetable Purees and Savory Cauliflower

Vegetable purees are a nice change from straight vegetables.  I usually steam my cauliflower and broccoli, then serve them hot or cold with olive oil or butter; but a puree brings out the flavor in a more blended, very different, and tasty way.  Both purees can be made into soups simply by adding more liquid.

Puree of Broccoli

This puree is a blend of broccoli, cream, parmesan cheese, and nutmeg and is delicious.  Very simple to make.

* 1 lb. of broccoli (approx.) thick parts of stems cut off and discarded

* 3/4 cup of half-and-half

* 1 Tbsp. Unsalted European style butter (other unsalted butter will do, but the higher fat content European style is much better.  In fact, if you are not used to cooking with it, definitely try it.  Worth the extra cost, which is not a lot)

* 1 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese

* 2 tsp. grated nutmeg

* salt and pepper to taste.

- Cut the broccoli into medium-size florets, and steam it until tender (you should be able to easily pierce the florets with a fork, and you want to be sure that the vegetable does not overcook and become mushy (about 10 minutes)

- Place the broccoli in a blender or food processor (if you have a blender, it will be easier to do the blending in two rounds)

- Add the half-and-half, parmesan, nutmeg, butter, salt and pepper

- Blend until the puree is medium thick.  You will be able to tell by stirring which you should be able to do easily.  Taste for all ingredients and add any or all at this point.  Blend again.

- Serve

Cauliflower Puree

Cauliflower has its own special taste, and the ingredients used for the broccoli puree will not work for this recipe.  The best combination is with tuna fish or anchovies.

* 1 lg. cauliflower, trimmed of thick stem and leaves which are discarded

* 1/2 can of Solid White Albacore tuna in water; or 4 flat anchovy filets

* 3/4 cup of half-and-half (approximately)

* 1/4 – 1/2 cup Amontillado sherry

* 1 Tbsp. European style butter

* 1/2 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese

* salt and pepper to taste

- Break the head of cauliflower into pieces – you don’t have to be too careful since you will eventually puree them

- Steam them until tender.  You should be able to pass a fork through the largest pieces easily, but avoid overcooking and a mushy vegetable (about 10 min.)

- Place the cauliflower in a blender or food processor.  If you use a blender, you may find it easier to do the blending in two operations.  If you do, just put half the amount of ingredients in for each round

- Add the parmesan, half-and-half, fish, sherry, ground pepper, and butter.  Do not add salt until you have blended and tasted, for the fish will add salt.

- Blend until a smooth puree which should pour easily out of the blender, but not too quickly.

- Check for ingredients, all of which can be added at this point

- Blend again and serve

Savory Cauliflower

This recipe calls for steaming the cauliflower and serving it in whole pieces and serving with a sauce made with a mayonnaise base.  The addition of anchovies or tuna, mustard, and served with capers, make a savory, slightly salty dish. 

* 1 lg. cauliflower, trimmed of thick stem and leaves

* 1-2 Tbsp. mayonnaise

* 1-2 tsp.(approx.)  Maille (or other good Dijon mustard)

* 1 Tbsp. whole milk yoghurt (you can use low fat, but the whole milk makes the sauce creamier and less acidy

* 3-4 flat filets of anchovy mashed well in a mixing bowl with a teaspoon of olive oil; OR 1/2 can Solid White Albacore tuna in water, chopped coarsely

* 1 small bunch parsley, very coarsely chopped

* 1 small bunch parsley, finely chopped

* 1 Tbsp. small capers

* 5-8 grindings fresh black pepper

* 2 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon

* salt to taste

- Steam the cauliflower until done.  You should be able to poke a large serving fork deep into the vegetable with little resistance; but be careful not to overcook.

- Remove the cauliflower and on a serving plate, cut into large pieces, arranged to cover the plate

- In a mixing bowl put the mayo, yoghurt, mustard, anchovies or tuna, half the capers, and the finely chopped parsley.  Mix well, and taste for ingredients.  The sauce should have high flavor – you should be able to taste the fish which should not be overpowering.  If there is too much of a fish taste for you (should not be the case with these proportions), add more mayo and/or yoghurt.  Add half of the lemon juice, test for taste, and add the rest if you like

- Serve over the cauliflower.  Add the coarsely chopped parsley, the remainder of the capers, and the ground pepper; and serve

Recipes - Potatoes Au Gratin Aux Fines Herbes

Potatoes Au Gratin – or scalloped potatoes – are a staple of both French and American cooking.  I got a particular liking for them when I was staying in Normandy with a friend who cooked them with fresh herbs from her garden.  It was in December, and I was amazed that parsley, oregano, and thyme would withstand the winter.  As cold as it can get in France in the winter, they rarely get the hard freezes that would kill any herb or vegetable in the Northeast United States.  As an aside, I got my first look at rosemary growing in St. Tropez in the south of France on the Mediterranean – great bushes of it everywhere.

The classic French version of this dish is with lots of cheese, usually Emmental or Gruyere.  So much cheese, in fact, that when pulled out of the oven, the cheese is bubbling and overflowing the baking dish.  I use much less cheese, but the dish is still excellent.

Potatoes Au Gratin Aux Fines Herbes

* 4 large Yukon Gold potatoes (even the biggest of these potatoes are not very big, certainly not like a baking potato), sliced very thin (not paper thin and translucent, but almost)

* 4 tsp. each of dried oregano, thyme, and basil. 

* 2 cups grated Gruyere or Emmental cheese.  The French would use at least double this amount.  More is good, and if you like a lot of cheese, use it, and be sure to put an extra large portion on top.  The best is to use half-Emmental and half-Gruyere

* 1 large onion, cut into thin, round slices

* 1 Tbsp. unsalted European-style butter

* 3/4 cup whole milk

* 1/2 cup half-and-half

* 1/4 cup Cognac or dry sherry

* 2 tsp. Dijon mustard

* ground pepper to taste, at least 10 grindings of the pepper mill

* salt

- Rub the inside of a medium-sized, shallow Pyrex dish with butter

- Arrange one layer of potatoes over the bottom of the dish

- Place about half of the sliced onions over the potatoes

- Sprinkle with spices and add ground pepper

- Dot the layer with butter

- Grate about half of the cheese over the layer of potatoes, onions, and spices

- Repeat the process – layer the potatoes, onions, spices, and pepper; dot with butter

- Grate the remaining cheese over this second layer of potatoes and onions

- Mix the milk, cream, mustard, and cognac/bourbon

- Slowly pour the liquid evenly over the potatoes

- Preheat the oven to 400F, bake for 25 minutes covered; then another 20 uncovered. After you uncover the potatoes, poke them with a large fork.  They should be still a bit firm. When they are done, the top layer will brown and the potatoes easy to put a fork through. 

Variations

Both of these variations are classic and good.  Pick the one which suits you.  You can’t go wrong!

1) Use fresh herbs.  If you do, omit the basil which has too strong a taste, and too sweet and floral a taste for this dish

2) Use bacon.  Use about 1/4 a package of standard, smoked cured bacon, fry until well done, but not crisp.  When you are building the potato layers, omit the spices and replace with bacon

3) Use mushrooms. Buy flavorful fresh mushrooms, slice, and sauté in butter and sherry. Place them on each layer of potatoes, and add a sprinkling of thyme.  Omit the other spices.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf–Never Second-guess a Marriage

 

I first read Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in college, and was completely taken with it. I was too young to really understand the complex psychological and sexual dynamics of the main characters, George and Martha, but as I grew older and had my own intense and complex relationships, I began to understand a central point – you can never judge a relationship by what you see.

George and Martha are a middle-aged couple who live in New Carthage, a university town in New England, in the 1950s. Martha is the daughter of the university president and George is a professor in the History Department. The action takes place over a space of two hours from 2am on a Sunday morning after a faculty party at the school. Through a series of games, George and Martha pit each other in a battle of wills which, as the play goes on, appears to be a battle in extremis. The games are variously cruel, hateful, and mean with no apparent purpose except to wound and hurt. At the beginning of the play the exchanges between George and Martha are so hateful and spiteful that there is no conclusion but that they do in fact hate each other irreversibly.

As the play goes on, however, and the elaborate series of psychological games are played (Hump the Hostess, Bringing Up Baby, Get the Guests, Humiliate the Host), we begin to suspect that there is more to their wounding thrusts and parries – that perhaps George and Martha really love each other, or at least have a mutual dependency that could pass for love. After each skirmish of wills, one or the other expresses admiration for the skill of the maneuver regardless of its hurt or humiliation, suggesting that the games may be a necessary, although indirect way at getting to the heart of the matter – the very core of the relationship which despite the brutality of the battles, is vitally important to them, a matter of survival if not life or death.

By the end of the play, this interpretation is confirmed. The elaborate games, culminating in the “death” of a son they invented - a fictional, fantasy child who was both the anchor of their marriage, and a reminder of their failure as the parents they desperately wanted to be – completely broke down all fantasy, illusion, and pretence, and as George says, get to the marrow of the bone. As they emerge from the destruction, they realize that they are standing on a stronger foundation, and that there is a glimmer of hope for the future.

Some critics have criticized the main proposition of the play – the construction of elaborate games and especially the device of the son which they find even beyond the usual theatergoer’s ‘suspension of disbelief’. I never have questioned this theatrical turn, nor did I have to suspend any disbelief because I never had any in the first place. I have known women like Martha whose life has been an elaborate construction of fantasy and illusion. I had to dance with these exciting women within their fabricated world and never challenge it; or call them on it; or reveal to others what I knew. In a somewhat similar way, Tennessee Williams has created women who live in a fantasy world, but often they are unable to emerge from it. They are either destroyed like Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire or retreat forever into an even smaller illusory world like Laura in Glass Menagerie. Williams, like Albee, has created women who see that they must at least try to enter and survive in the real world, but most are defeated in the attempt; but Albee has made the painful entry hopeful.

Over the years I have seen marriages like George and Martha’s – not as exaggerated, of course, but similar in the games that they play and in the surface impenetrability of the relationship. Like George and Martha these marriages were complex – men do indeed marry their mothers , and the women their fathers. There were hidden dependencies that kept marriages together, fears, uncertainties of relationships with other people……a thousand reasons behind the spiteful exchanges, the cuts and mean bruising. I didn’t particularly like being around these people when they bitched and fought, but at least I had some glimmering of understanding why. But whereas the bitching and fighting between these real couples was a continuing battle of wills over long-forgotten slights and insults, there was never any resolution to the real underlying issues that caused the unhappiness.

The fictional George and Martha have the courage to face these issues. In order to resolve them, however, they have to flay each other bloody, destroy their demons of hate and resentment, in order to be able to emerge on the other side. I admire them for that. Few of us are capable of such honesty.

So I never judge marriages or relationships. I never ask the obvious question, “How could she be married to him?” let alone try to answer it. The answer is behind closed doors and should remain there; but, after Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, my interest and speculation about that answer will always be there.

Originally published in Real Story Publishing (http://realstorypublishing.com/) November 3, 2011