COOKBOOK/A TABLE - Cool as a Cucumber

This cooling Couscous and Crab Salad with Cucumber and Mint has been one of my summer go-tos for years, thanks to the brilliant former New York Times food columnist Molly O’Neill (who we sadly lost in 2019) and her cookbook A Well-Seasoned Appetite. As you might guess, the cookbook is divided by season, but also includes superb essays celebrating the virtues of eating well, as informed by O’Neill’s conviction that “cooking should nourish life...”  

Do enjoy!

Couscous And Crab Salad With Cucumber Juice And Mint
By Molly O’Neill

Ingredients
Yield: Four servings

1 cup cucumber juice* 
½ cup uncooked instant couscous
2 cups lump crab meat, picked over for shells
15 small cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
½ teaspoon grated lemon rind
½ teaspoon grated lime rind
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation
Step 1
Place ¾ cup of the cucumber juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the couscous, cover and remove from heat. Let stand for 5 minutes. Uncover and stir with a fork. Place in a bowl and set aside to cool.

Step 2
Add the crab meat, cherry tomatoes, onion, mint and lemon and lime rinds and toss to coat. Toss in the remaining cucumber juice. Season with the salt and pepper. Divide among 4 plates and serve immediately.



*If you have a juice extractor...to make one cup of cucumber juice, pass one large peeled cucumber through a juice extractor. OR—cut to the chase, as I do, and pick up a brand of cold pressed juice that contains cucumber, such as Suja. You may also puree a few peeled, seeded cucumbers and squeeze the pulp through cheese cloth for your juice!

BOOK/A TABLE - Tomato Flan in Florence

I brought E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View with me to Florence as the first part of the novel takes place there. What a thrill to read this upon waking, my first morning in town...

“It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room...it was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in the unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite...”

And fling wide the windows I did as well that morning, breathing in all the gorgeous Florentine air, ripe with spring jasmine!

We knew we had to return to Florence’s celebrated Cibreo, one of my favorite restaurants in the world that I know. In particular, I was really looking forward to the simple, luxurious tomato flan (a savory spread similar in consistency to the Spanish dessert flan) meant to be slathered on toasted country bread. Alas, I discovered they only serve it during the summertime, when tomatoes are at their best. 

However, fate intervened when a dear friend took us to Osteria della Tre Panche tucked away in The Hermitage Hotel, a few steps away from the Ponte Vecchio. There I spied Il Budino di Pomodoro on the menu, which translates to “tomato pudding.” Served as an accompaniment to sumptuous chicken with truffled cream sauce, mozzarella in corrozza, and pappardelle with boar ragu, the budino turned out to be more than an ample subsitute for the flan. It was terrific!     

A Room with a View asks a question of its young heroine Lucy Honeychurch, who arrives home to England with a greatly changed perspective—what did you bring back from Italy? 

For me, I returned feeling the sunshine over the Piazza di Signorina still streaming on my face and the lingering scent of jasmine everywhere...I snipped a fragrant blossom and pressed it between the pages of Forster’s beautful novel. 

And oh yes, I brought back a recipe for tomato flan!

Tomato Flan
Ingredients
1 8-ounce can Del Monte or other tomato sauce
12 large basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for garnish
4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (about 1 1/3 envelopes)
Salt and fresh black pepper to taste
Vegetable oil
12 slices country bread

Method

In a blender or food processor, combine tomato sauce, 6 leaves basil, garlic, ¼ cup olive oil, gelatin and salt and pepper to taste. Blend at high speed for 2 minutes.
Lightly oil 6 small cappuccino or other cups. Divide tomato mixture among cups. Refrigerate 20 minutes.
To serve, dip bottom of each cup in hot water to loosen flan. Unmold onto 6 plates. Garnish with a basil leaf and a drop of olive oil. Place 2 slices bread on each plate.

Yield: 6 servings.

BOOK/A TABLE - Lemon Sandwich Pie Cookies

 

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself...

So famously begins Virginia Woolf’s visionary novel Mrs. Dalloway, about a single day (in June!) in the life of a woman as she plans a party and falls into memories of a love from long ago. 

But what if Mrs. Dalloway BAKED the flowers herself? That might be a very different story indeed—and the flowers might be a blooming bunch of these Lemon Sandwich Pie cookies that look like daisies and taste like little lemon meringue pies.

Whenever I’m visiting my family in New Hampshire, I like to pick up a copy of fresh magazine at Hannaford, the New England chain of supermarkets. There’s alway something delicious to be found in the pages such as quiche or cassoulet, or these cookies! Perhaps we can call them Dalloways?

Lemon Sandwich Pie Cookies

Adapted from fresh magazine

Makes 12 to 14

Ingredients
All-purpose flour, as needed
1 (15 oz) package rolled pie crust, at room temperature
½ cup marshmallow fluff
¼  cup store-bought lemon curd
2 TB confectioners’ sugar (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly dust work surface and a rolling pin with flour. Gently roll one pie crust, soothing out any creases. Using a 2” flower-shaped cookie cutter, cut out 12 to 14 cookies. Repeat with second pie crust.

2. Transfer cookies to parchment-lined baking sheets. Using a round cookie cutter ( 3/4” or smaller), cut out the centers from half of the cookies. Bake until cookies are golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cookies cool completely.

3. Spread 2 teaspoons marshmallow fluff into an even layer on each whole cookie. Add ½ teaspoon lemon curd to center a fluff on each cookie. Top with remaining cut out cookies. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

MY SUGGESTION: Using a sifter, sift confectioners’ sugar over top cookie layer before placing them on each bottom whole cookie.

God bless Mrs. Dalloway—and Hannaford as well! Happy June, everybody!