BOOK/A TABLE - Plum, Raspberry, and Tarragon Soup

I was fairly obsessed with the sheet of four perforated recipe cards included in each issue of Martha Stewart Living, back when the millennium was still new. These recipes could be made individually or used to compose a full meal, such as this dinner I made from a full sheet of recipe cards featuring chicory salad, chicken livers, polenta with bacon, and roasted pears.

Here I present a fine Plum, Raspberry, and Tarragon Soup pulled from one of the cards dating back to June of 2001—I don’t know what happened to the others that accompanied it, but we recently rounded out our dinner by pairing the soup with fresh corn and Shake ’n Bake pork chops!

Although I haven’t been able to find any good blueberries this summer, strawberries certainly have been fantastic and I hope you can find some juicy plums. Bailey White’s witty commentaries on NPR led to her charming debut novel Quite a Year for Plums, where she wrote of a peculiar cast of small town characters in south Georgia and a bumper plum crop...

“‘Quite a year for plums,’ everybody kept saying, but that didn’t begin to describe the plum crop of that early summer...in every household people were eating plums and baking cakes with plums, cooking up plum jam and plum jelly, or just raking up mounds and piles of rotten plums, and getting stung by yellow jackets.”

When making the recipe, try hybrid plums (such as golden plumcot or plumogranate plumcot varieties). The sweetness of the plums, tart raspberries, and added depth of flavor from tarragon all conspire to make this sprightly soup really come alive. I also recommend making it the day before you intend to serve, and let the ingredients get to know each other overnight in the fridge. 

My comments below in italics.

Plum, Raspberry, and Tarragon Soup

Adapted from marthastewart.com
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs (about 6) ripe red plums, plus one plum, skin on and cut into 1/4-inch dice for garnish
6 oz raspberries, plus more for garnish
1 cup white wine
6 tablespoons sugar (2 tablespoons should be plenty)
3 sprigs tarragon, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons triple sec, Cointreau, or Grand Marnier (tthis is optional, but I used Grand Marnier. Perhaps try orange zest for something less sweet!)
1/4 cup water

Method
1.  Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add plums; blanch until skin begins to peel, 2 to 3 minutes. In the meantime, fill a large bowl (a metal mixing bowl witl help keep the water cold) with ice and water; set aside. Remove plums from boiling water; place in the ice bath until cooled. Once cool, remove plums from ice bath, reserving ice bath.

2. Peel plums, remove pits, cut into chunks, and place in a medium saucepan. Add the raspberries, wine, sugar, tarragon, triple sec (if using), and add 1/4 cup water and another 1/4 cup of the water used to blanch the plums to the saucepan; cover, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low, and allow to simmer until plums are falling apart, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from heat, transfer to a clean bowl (again, using a metal mixing bowl will help with the chilling process), and place in the reserved ice bath, stirring occasionally, until cold.

3. Remove tarragon sprigs from cold mixture, and transfer mixture to a blender. Puree, working in batches if necessary. Strain mixture with a fine mesh strainer into a bowl to get rid of those pesky raspberry seeds. Serve (in your favorite soup bowls, glass mugs, or tall glasses) and garnish with diced plum, raspberries, and tarragon.

Sangria & Ceviche

Whether or not you actually do get a kick from Champagne, enjoy sippin’ on gin and juice, or simply prefer wasting away in Margaritaville, a good sangria full of ice and fresh fruit is perhaps the best way to drink up summer. Add a ceviche to the mix and you’ve got not only dinner and drinks, but a seasonal celebration of flavor as well.

The sangria recipe below is courtesy of Martha Stewart, but the ceviche comes from an Ecuadoran woman who works with my husband and often shares her delicious homemade dish with the office!

Sangria
Adapted from marthastewart.com
Serves 6-8

Ingredients
1 ripe Peach, pitted and sliced
1 red apricot, pitted and sliced
5 strawberries, sliced into thirds, new line 1 seedless orange, sliced in rounds
1/4 cup brandy, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau
Pinch of granulated sugar
1 bottle dry red or white wine, such as Spanish Rioja or Bordeaux
2 tablespoons superfine sugar
2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice

Method

Macerate the fruit: soak peach, apricot, strawberries, and orange in brandy, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau and a pinch of sugar for up to one hour. And a pitcher with some ice combine the macerated fruit and liqueur with the remaining ingredients. Mix well, and serve.  


Shrimp Ceviche
Ingredients
1 lb shrimp
1 red onion
1 green onion
4 to 5 lemons
1 orange
Cilantro
1 tomato
1 teaspoon each cumin and oregano
1 celery stalk
Extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups water
Pinch of salt

Method
1. Cut off the shrimp heads and put them to boil with the water. After they boil, add cumin and oregano into the water with a little bit of salt. Cut up cilantro and green onion and add this to the boiling water as well.

2. Proceed to clean the rest of the shrimp with lemon. Devein shrimp by cutting down the middle of the shrimp’s backs and put the clean shrimp to the side.

3. Take off the heads of the shrimp and add the clean shrimp into the boiling water for 10 seconds and quickly take out before they overcook. Leave these to the side.

4. Turn off the heat for the boiling water and add the water to a blender and add the shrimp heads only as well. Pulse this until everything is just liquefied. After, strain the mixture into a bowl, only liquid in the bowl.

5. Afterwards, cut the red onion in fine slices and tomatoes and squares. Put it in a large bowl and add your pinch of salt and lemon juice and the strained mixture from the previous step. Mix these all together well.

6. Once mixed, add in a little bit of orange juice to the mixture. Lastly, add your shrimp into the mixture and mix until well combined.

7. Serve with rice to enjoy (or any side dish you wish to accompany) and—this is essential—top with corn nuts!

BOOK/A TABLE - A Perfectly Eggsecuted Omelette!

 

While visiting family in New Hampshire, I discovered Brandmoore Farm down the road a piece from my cousin’s house. They had, among other things (such as furls of garlic scapes, steaks and fresh ground meats, as well as chunky cheese curds, and ruby kraut), these gorgeous fresh eggs!

My hubs and I safely carted them back to a steamy Manhattan (unbroken) and as the eggs sat in their glistening shells on the kitchen counter, I quickly set forth to undo our careful packing by cracking a few of them open to make omelettes.

My thoughts had turned to Karen Pierce’s excellent cookbook Recipes for Murder (previously mentioned here), which features 66 delicious dishes devised from Agatha Christie’s mysteries. I seemed to remember something about an omelette...to wit, A Perfect Omelette pulled from the pages of Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead.

In the midst of figuring out how Mrs. McGinty’s demise was executed, the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot must also contend with the perilous kitchen of his hostess:

“I have given Mrs. Summerhayes a cookery book and have also taught her personally how to make an omelette. Bon Dieu, what I suffered in that house!”

The wonderful thing about omelettes is that they can be served day or night. An omelette with toast and orange juice—breakfast! An elegant chive omelette served with crusty peasant bread and a sturdy red wine—dinner! By the glow of candlelight, of course...perhaps with a mystery novel in hand?

A Perfect Omelette
Adapted from Recipes for Murder by Karen Pierce

Ingredients

2 tablespoons salted butter
Two large eggs
2 tablespoons whole milk
Salt and pepper
Mushrooms, grated cheddar cheese, fine herbs, or seafood for filling (optional)

Method
1. In a medium frying pan over medium heat, melt the butter.
2. In a small bowl, crack the eggs and beat well.
3. Add the milk to the eggs and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.
4. When the pan becomes hot enough to make a drop of water hiss, pour into the egg mixture. Do not stir. Cook for one minute, cover, and cook for three more minutes. (I love the idea of covering the eggs and will always cook omelettes this way! No fussy tilting of the pan; the eggs steam up nice and fluffy.) 
5. When the center has set firmly, turn the omelette over and cook for one more minute.
6. Add filling of choice down the center of the eggs, then gently fold half the omelette over, lining up the edges.
7. Cook for one more minute until the filling warms.
8. Slide the omelette onto a plate and serve.