Chilled English Pea Soup with Crispy Prosciutto

I based this recipe on the Chilled Garden Pea Soup recipe in the Eleven Madison Park Cookbook by Daniel Humm and Will Guidara.  Like almost all of the recipes in Eleven Madison Park, I had to simplify this one considerably before I could attempt to make it.  By omitting the "buttermilk snow" and by substituting a piece of crispy prosciutto for the more-involved "prosciutto crisp," I was able to bring this recipe down to earth while staying true to the vibrant flavors in the dish.  The sweet-fresh flavor of spring peas is complemented by the tartness of buttermilk and the sting of green onion.  Crispy prosciutto, served on the side, adds salt and a little whimsy to the dish.

The most involved part of this recipe is shelling the peas.  Two cups doesn't sound like a lot, but after you've been shelling peas for 30 minutes and your measuring cup still looks empty, you'll realize that it's actually a lot.  That being said, the fresh peas are what make this dish special, so don't even think about cheating and using frozen peas.  If you're lucky enough to find freshly-shelled peas, available at some farmers markets, they're a great alternative.

This recipe makes enough to serve 6 as a small first course or amuse bouche.  If you want to serve it as a middle course, simply double the amounts in the recipe.  The soup is best if made the day before serving, allowing the flavors to intensify overnight.  The crispy prosciutto can be prepared several hours ahead of time, but are best if eaten the day they are prepared.

Chilled English Pea Soup with Crispy Proscuitto

Ingredients

Kosher salt

1/3 cup chopped green onions, green parts only

2 cups shelled English peas

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons good olive oil

6 mint leaves

6 thin slices prosciutto

Freshly ground black pepper

Tabasco sauce

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Fill a large bowl with ice and water.  Add the green onions to the boiling water and cook for about 30 seconds. 
2. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to the ice water.  Once cool, drain them on paper towels. 
3. Add the peas to the boiling water and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. 
4. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to the ice water and drain with the green onions once cool.

5. Place the green onions and peas in a blender along with the buttermilk, olive oil, mint leaves, 1 tablespoon salt and 6 cups of water. 
6. Blend on high speed until completely smooth, 4 or 5 minutes. 
7. Pass soup through a fine mesh strainer, pressing against the sides gently with the back of a wooden spoon to strain.  Clean the strainer, and then strain again into a clean bowl.  If the soup isn't completely smooth and free of all solid particles, strain again for a third time.
8. Chill the soup over ice, stirring occasionally. 
9. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Crispy Proscuitto

10. The next day, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with Silpat.  Carefully lay the slices of prosciutto on top and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until crisp and slightly dark. 
11. Remove using tongs and drain on paper towels.  Store the prosciutto in an airtight container until ready to serve.
12. Remove the soup from the refrigerator and season to taste with additional Kosher salt, black pepper and Tabasco.

13. To serve, fill 6 chilled demitasse or other small cups (such as a tall shot glass or espresso cup) with equal portions of the soup.  Place a piece of prosciutto to the side of each cup and serve immediately.

Poached Pears in White Wine

The poached pear is a controversial dessert. It's easy to make, but can be easy to screw up as well. It can be romantic and easy to serve, or it could just be an easy way out. The trick to good poached pears is, first and foremost, picking the right pears that are already in season, ripe, and oozing delicious pear, before being bruised and abused and thus not so pretty to serve. I've found that Bartlet work well, as do Bosc. Purchase them a bit firm, before you plan on using them, and let them ripen for a couple of days. If they start to go too fast, you can either slow them down via the fridge, or you can poach them, and they'll hold in their syrup for about three days. This brings us to another advantage of the poached pear, the fact that you can prep it all and save it in its syrup for a mighty three days before dessert/salad/etc. is served. That gives you two days to screw up your tart crust enough times to give up and just serve poached pears, or two days to masterfully perfect the rest of your meal in a more leisurely manner.

Lastly, choose a wine that you like to drink as your wine for poaching. Sometimes wine that maybe was a well-intentioned gift but wasn't really what you like to drink gets sidelined for cooking purposes, and that's fine if we're just de-glazing a pan, but when you poach a pear, you are essentially giving the pear the complexion of whatever wine you are using, so lay off the yellow tail for a bit. Use a sauvignon blanc or chardonnay that you drink on a regular basis, and you'll get lovely bright colors in your pear. A chardonnay will lend oakier tones, because it is chardonnay and that's an oakier wine. TK and I are not so big on the chardonnay, so we always use sauvignon blanc, but either of those wines will work and will avoid being overly sweet. You want the sweet to come from the vanilla bean, not the wine. The wine is there for brightness.

How do you serve your poached pears? Well, you can add some nuts and frisee and some goat cheese and you have your self a pretty nice upscale salad, or you can slice and add to a decedent pear tart with frangipane, or you can serve simply and beautifully with some vanilla or ice cream and tea cookies. It can serve as the sweet counter to a savory cheese plate or first course, or stand alone as a dessert. It's really a versatile little course that's good to have in your pocket.

Poached Pears with White Wine

1 bottle white wine (750 ml)

2/3 cup granulated sugar (about 4 1/2 ounces)

2 tablespoons lemon juice from 1 lemon plus 4 or 5 large strips zest removed with vegetable peeler

1 cinnamon stick

15 - 20 whole black peppercorns

3 whole cloves

1/8 teaspoon table salt

1 vanilla bean, slit in half lengthwise (optional, but encouraged)

4 ripe but firm pears (about 8 ounces each), preferably Bosc or Bartlett

Instructions

1. Combine wine, sugar, lemon juice and zest, cinnamon, peppercorns, cloves, and salt in large, nonstick saucepan or dutch oven. 
2. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean pod using a paring knife and add seeds (they look like fine caviar) to the saucepan as well as the scraped out pod.
3. Bring mixture to simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar.
4. Peel pears with vegetable peel making long verticle stripes from stem to blossom end of pear.
5. Working quickly to avoid discoloration, cut pears in half.
6. Remove seed core of pear.
7. Cut out the blossom end of pear, then cut a long narrow "V" from cored center of pear up to and around the stem of the pear, removing the stem and the fibrous center core of pear (see photo below of pear halves for what pears should look like).
8. Gently slide pears into simmering wine using a spatula or slotted spoon.
9. Increase heat to high and return to simmer then reduce heat to low. Simmer while covered until pears are tender enough that a toothpick or skewer inserted into pear should slide in and out with very little resistance and the outer edges of pears have turned translucent. Turn pears in liquid halfway through poaching time using wooden spoon or spatula. Pears should simmer for about 10 minutes total.
10. Off heat, cool pears in liquid, partially covered, until pears have turned translucent and are cool enough to handle, about 1 hour. (Pears and liquid may be transferred to nonreactive bowl or container, cooled to room temperature, covered, and refrigerated for up to 3 days.)
11. Remove from liquid and serve pears as desired, additionally slicing if necessary. If preparing a tart, dry pears on paper towels to prevent tart from becoming soggy.

Pasta With Kalamata Olives, Garlic and Basil

This is a pretty easy way to take a simple pasta dish and make it complex and deeply layered. The acid of the tomato paste, brightness of the lemon, salt of the anchovy paste (or olive paste if preparing as vegetarian/no anchovy version), and fresh herb of the basil create flavors all around. It's a warm, flavorful meal that isn't half bad for lunch the next day, either.

To make the recipe vegetarian, just substitute kalamata olive paste for the anchovies/anchovy paste. You can also do this if you are simply scared of the anchovy, as many people are. I encourage you, however, not to fear these salty, oily fish, but embrace it. The easiest way to think of anchovy is as the X factor in a lot of things, such as this dish, or Ceasar salad. You can't fully taste it, but it adds a brine-y note that is distinct and often what people love about these dishes. Admittedly, it can be a mess to work with straight from the jar (always get the white filets). It's oily. That's why we often substitute in a little bit of anchovy paste in place of the filets to save time and clean-up. The filets are better, but so is not cleaning an extra knife and cutting board and figuring out what to do with the rest of the jar of anchovies. Like with tomato paste, we buy the tubes of anchovy paste, and keep the leftovers in the fridge for later. This way we don't feel wasteful buying a whole can of tomato paste and then only using a tablespoon. How many recipes really call for a whole can of tomato paste, anyway?

If you find the salt of kalamata olives is too strong, you can use Manzilla olives in their place. The original recipe for this had bread crumbs to thicken, but we've never really had a problem with the sauce being runny, so we've removed them, though we have continued to use the full amount of garlic. Basil can be expensive, and you can reduce it as low as half a cup if necessary.

 

Cooking Time: 40 minutes, Serves 4

 

Ingredients

1/4       cup extra-virgin olive oil

6          medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press (about 2 tablespoons)

1          tablespoon minced white anchovy fillets (4 to 6 fillets)  

           OR 1 teaspoon of anchovy paste 

           OR 1 teaspoon kalamata olive paste (if vegetarian)

1          tablespoon tomato paste

1/4-1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

1/4        cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes , drained, rinsed, patted dry, and cut into thin strips

1           cup pitted kalmata olives , well rinsed and coarsely chopped (1 8 oz bottle)

1 3/4     teaspoons table salt

1           pound rigatoni (mezze) or farfalle (any short pasta will work)

2           ounces finely grated Parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)

3           tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

1 1/2     cups lightly packed fresh basil leaves , roughly torn

            Ground black pepper

1           lemon , cut into wedges

Instructions

1. Combine 2 tablespoons quality olive oil, garlic, anchovies (or paste of choice if substituting), tomato paste, red pepper flakes, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives in medium bowl. Make sure olives are well-rinsed of brine prior to chopping and adding. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, bring 4 quarts water to boil in Dutch oven over high heat. Add rigatoni and salt.
3. While pasta is cooking, heat 12" nonstick skillet to medium heat and add olive mixture and remaining olive oil. Cook until olive mixture is aromatic and oil has turned rusty red, 4 to 6 minutes. 
4. Remove 1 cup pasta cooking water from pot and add to skillet. Bring to simmer and cook for 2 minutes. Remove pan from heat while pasta finishes cooking.
5. When pasta is just shy of al dente, drain pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water, and transfer back to Dutch oven. 
6. Add olive mixture to pasta and toss over medium heat until pasta absorbs most of liquid, about 2 minutes. Stir in 1/2 cup Parmesan. Adjust consistency of sauce with reserved pasta water. (Sauce should cling to pasta but not be too loose or runny.) 
7. Remove pot from heat and stir in parsley and basil; adjust seasoning with pepper. 
8. Sprinkle with parmesan and serve with lemon wedges to be added prior to eating.

Peppermint Mocha Cookies

These cookies are almost like a tiny little brownie topped with peppermint butter cream. I make them every year for Christmas as my official "festive" cookie. They're a bit more unusual than your standard sugar cookie or gingerbread cookie, but feel right at home among their more traditional holiday brethren, and round out any good cookie exchange with a rich chocolate option. And if you want them outside the month of December, just omit the food coloring, or go with red or blue instead of the admittedly Christmas driven green. They're not that hard to make. They look adorable, and you get to play around with a mallet. Who doesn't want to play with a mallet?

Speaking of which, when crushing your candy canes, try and really crush them down into a fine crumb of candy cane. You want the cookies to have a bit of texture and crunch, but not have such large pieces that they get caught in your teeth while eating. The color of the candy cane will still be evident against the butter cream backdrop. Make sure to ice then top immediately, instead of icing a large number then going back to top with candies. The frosting will start to harden very quickly, and once that happens, the peppermint won't stick. It is easiest to just got frost, top, plate. Frost. Top. Plate. If pressed for time, the cookies can be made the day before you frost. Store in an air-tight plastic container along with a slice of torn up sandwich bread. The sandwich bread prevents the cookies from drying out and keeps the chew. They may stick together very slightly when stacked. This is fine. Remember, you are frosting the cookies, so small blemishes on the top will be washed a way in a delicious layer of mint frosting. Frosting covers all. Be generous with the frosting. It's meant to be a thick, almost cake-like layer of frosting.

The cookies will not spread very much in the oven. They are meant to be about the size of a silver dollar.

Cooking Time: 30 minutes active, 30 minutes inactive Makes 24-30 small cookies

Ingredients

Cookies
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2   cup cocoa powder
1/2   teaspoon baking soda
1/2   teaspoon table salt
8      tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), softened but still cool
3/4   cup granulated sugar
1/2   cup brewed espresso or strong coffee, cooled

1/2   teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
1      teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting
6     tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
2     cups confectioners' sugar
2     tablespoons milk
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (or to taste)
3 to 4 drops green or red food coloring 
4      peppermint candy canes (or about 10-12 peppermint wheels), crushed into crumbs

Instructions

1. For the cookies: Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large (18 by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together into medium bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula.
4. Dissolve espresso powder into cold coffee. (If coffee is warm, dissolve espresso powder, then place measuring cup of coffee in a larger measuring cup serving as an ice water bath to cool quickly.
5. Add cooled espresso and vanilla and beat at medium-low speed until combined. Don't worry if it looks curdled, that will fix itself when you add the dry ingredients. Scrape down bowl.



Don't worry, it'll work itself out.



It may curdle when coffee is added

6. With mixer on low speed, gradually add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
7. Roll dough into thirty 1-inch balls. Place 15 balls on each prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. 
8. Bake until just set, rotating sheets from front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking, 8 to 11 minutes. 

9. Cool cookies on sheets for 2 minutes; transfer with metal spatula to wire rack to cool completely, at least 30 minutes. (Cookies can be stored in airtight container with a torn piece of sandwich bread or a couple of sugar cubes for up to 4 days.)
10. For the frosting: Take the candy canes, and place inside a gallon ziploc bag. Seal the bag tightly, then place on a cutting board and strike with the smooth, wide side of a mallet until the candy canes become a fine powder. Set aside while you make the frosting.
11. With an electric mixer, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute. 
12. With mixer running, add confectioners' sugar a 1/4 cup at a time and beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. 
13. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined and starting to cream, about 3 minutes. Scrape down bowl.
14. Add milk, peppermint extract, and food coloring and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice. 
15. Frost a cooled cookie with a rubber spatula or angled spatula and immediately sprinkle with crushed mints. Place on a plate for the frosting to harden, and continue frosting the rest of the cookies. (Once frosted, cookies are best served within 3 days.)

Brown Sugar and Citrus Cured Salmon

This salmon has become a staple at our holiday party and is always one of the first things to get eaten. It makes an elegant and impressive hors d'oeuvre, but it's simple to make and can be prepared days ahead of time and sliced just before the party.

The salmon can cure for anywhere from 24 to 48 hours. I prefer lightly-cured salmon, which is melt-in-your-mouth tender and still has prominent salmon flavor, so I only cure my salmon for 24 hours. If you prefer your cured salmon to have firmer flesh and saltier flavor, leave your fish in the cure for the full 48 hours. If you're squeamish about serving raw-ish fish to your guests, I would recommend curing your fish for longer than 24 hours.

This recipe will work well with any variety of salmon, but it has to be very fresh. Ask your fishmonger which salmon is the freshest, and choose that one. Try to begin curing the salmon on the same day you purchase your fish. This recipe will make enough fish to serve 6 as an appetizer. For larger parties, simply use a larger filet and increase the amount of curing mixture to maintain the correct ratio of fish to cure.

Ingredients 

1 pound very fresh salmon filet, skin on

1 cup Kosher salt

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1/4 cup citrus zest from any combination of lemons, limes, oranges and grapefruits

several sprigs dill

creme fraiche

Instructions Combine the salt, sugar, peppercorns and zest in a medium bowl. Line the bottom of a glass baking dish with the dill. Pour a third of the curing mixture over the dill and smooth. Place the salmon, skin down, into the dish and pour the rest of the curing mixture over the fish. Smooth the curing mixture to form an even layer. The salmon should be completely encased in the curing mixture. Place a layer of plastic wrap directly onto the curing mixture, and place another glass baking dish on top of that. Weight with cans and place in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours. Remove the salmon from the curing mixture and rinse thoroughly under running water. Dry the salmon with paper towels and remove the skin using a filet knife. Slice as thinly as possible and serve with creme fraiche.