Salad on Kitchen3N

Citrus Quinoa Salad With Dates, Almonds, and Mint

Sat, 23 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Ramadan is coming up! I figured I should add a few more Ramadan friendly recipes to the blog, for those of us who are looking to depart a bit from the usual fried foods iftars. During these long summer days when we're denying ourselves food and liquid for 15 hours straight, we need to treat our bodies well! This is a dish you can feel good about eating, that's not going to make you crash before the long night of ibadah (prayers) you have lined up.

This recipe is based on one from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. I know a quinoa salad is not the first thing you think of when you consider French cuisine, but she’s filled her cookbook with things she makes for her family, without strictly adhering to a particular cuisine. In our hyperconnected world, it’s kind of impossible to resist influences from other regions. She’s got a Moroccan Tagine and carrot salad, small plates from her American upbringing, French pastries and traditional stews from her current residence. And she’s kind of an authority when it comes to food so I trust her with my quinoa!

Caprese Salad with Roasted Tomatoes and Burrata

Sun, 26 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

When I went to Capri in April of 2008, I trekked up the steep hills to a trattoria for lunch after a morning of taking in the vistas. I was so excited to have a Caprese Salad in the birthplace of Caprese Salads. Imagine my disappointment when the waiter brought us green, far from ripe tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. Then it hit me. The seasons. Seasonal eating was such a novel concept to me as an American - everything’s available all year round, and the whole conscious foodie thing hadn’t really come into full swing at that time. So, what I had imagined was a plate of luscious, bursting at the seams red tomatoes with buttery mozzarella and verdant basil. What I got was lackluster citrus with less than memorable accompaniments. If I had only come in the summer!Fast forward a few years and now I know that even the most lame tomatoes can be made dynamite by a long, sweet roast in the oven. It’s precisely what’s required of the tomatoes I’ve seen so far this season. Mild summer temperatures means mediocre sweetness and acidity (I think). So I topped regular grocery store tomatoes with sugar, salt, black pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. They reach a flavor complexity that rivals the most pungent pickles. Sweet, tangy and savory, it balances the mild, creamy addition of burrata. Burrata, if you’ve never had it, is cream filled mozzarella. On top of pizza, it makes for the creamiest cheese topping. I wanted to try it on this salad, but freaked out once I tried picking it up from its solution and found it to be so soft, it immediately started running all over the board. And then when you cut into it, it’s even more of a mess! I grabbed a bunch of paper towels and started wiping up the mess and I thought this dish was doomed for sure. But when I started picking up the squares (or blobs) I had cut from the ball of burrata, I appreciated the rustic appearance. It certainly wouldn’t work with raw slices of tomatoes. The whole aesthetic of the traditional Caprese Salad relies on the symmetry of the tomatoes and mozzarella. But with the warped form of the tomatoes from the heat of the oven, it worked well. I didn’t drizzle additional olive oil atop since I felt the burrata had plenty fat content. A sprinkling of cracked pepper and hand torn basil was the perfect adornment. Hopefully your basil is fresh and not the last scraps you could salvage from your (read: my) week-old bunch.

Valentine's Surf and Turf: Rib Eye Steak & Jumbo Shrimp

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This Ribeye from Honest Chops was absurd…

Ly delicious. I’ve only had a handful of steaks in my life. Namely because halal steaks are so hard to come by. Most halal butchers don’t differentiate between all the wonderful cuts (I think we’ve discussed this before). Nowadays, you can find some halal steaks at select NYC restaurants by way of Creekstone Farms. However, the last steak I had at Marc Forgione, just wasn’t that great. Not so much a reflection of the meat, rather the preparation.