Saffron

Dr. Rubrub has never had saffron before, and I have a little box of it I've been hoarding and "saving" for some special culinary occasion. So tonight seemed like as good a night as any to break it out.

Saffron Potatoes and cold beet salad. 

Ingredients

1lb potatoes (I used yukon golds)
1 stick butter (unsalted)
1 cup milk (or cream, or half and half)
salt and pepper to taste
a few pinches of saffron threads

First I started the very well-scrubbed potatoes in boiling water with the peels on. If you hate nutrients and dont want to eat the peels you can remove them after cooking, but we liked them mashed in with the middles.

The important part is that you let them boil in the peels in very well-salted water. This helps the flesh to stay creamy and not to absorb water and get all gluey and weird.

So let them boil for about a half hour or until a knife slides right through the middle of the biggest one without any trouble.

While those were cooking I decided to make a salad of last night's roasted beets. I chopped them up, drizzled them in olive oil and apple cider vinegar, tossed in the sections of an orange with some salt and pepper and shook the whole mix up to muddle the juices a little. This went on some good dark lettuce with a little aged white cheddar shredded on top.

The potatoes were nearing done when I started warming up the dairy. Using cream or half and half is great for really creamy mashed potatoes but all we had was milk, which worked just fine. Warm it slowly in a small saucepan, and crumble a few pinches of saffron into it. Saffron needs heat and fat to infuse things with it's lovely flavor, and heating the milk with it seemed to do the trick.

Melt your butter in another pan. This is important. Do not try to save dishes by melting it with the milk. Trust me.

Drain the potatoes and return them to the pot you boiled them in (there, I'm saving you dishes, see?) Mash in your preferred method (I used a wooden spoon.) Add the melted butter and mix, then add the milk (it's some science-y thing about the water in the liquid and the fat in the butter reacting with starch. Ask Smitten Kitchen if you want. Just trust me about the order.) Mix in the saffron-infused milk and stir things together. (I replaced the lid of the pot and let it all steam together for a bit while I assembled the salads.) Season to taste with salt and pepper. Eat and feel very fancy. Try not to spill the rest of your saffron on the floor....

Rhubarb

I haven't been posting for a number of reasons, the superficial of which being that I keep forgetting to take photos when I cook. The more serious reason is a little beast I sometimes call anxiety and other times depression, that, regardless of its name, coils like a sleeping cat on my chest, night and day. It makes me frantic and immobile all at once.

I don't like it very much.

But today I made a crumble I'm very, very proud of.

My lovely coworker has a garden and has generously been providing Spider with sacks of rhubarb lately, so there's been quite a lot of pie. or crumble really. I've been borrowing heavily from Orangette, making some variation of this crumble three times so far. Once with candied ginger and balsamic vinegar, once with strawberries, and tonight with white wine and vanilla bean. I actually set out to combine it with another of Molly's rhubarb recipes, and Spider seemed to like the result well enough.

Ingredients:

1 lb rhubarb, diced small
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
1 1/2 cup sugar, separated. (Half can be brown sugar if you like.)
7 tbsp melted butter or canola oil
1 vanilla bean, split
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup white wine
1 tsp ground ginger

(Alternative spices/fruits: Orange zest, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, candied ginger, balsamic vinegar, strawberries, raspberries)

Combine 1 cup flour, oats, 3/4 cup sugar (brown if you're using it) salt and ground ginger in a bowl and mix. Pour in the butter or canola oil and mush together until crumbly and combined. Set in the fridge for 30 minutes or until everything else is done and you get impatient. Preheat oven to 375.

(SIDE NOTE: I bought this $4 bottle of white wine from Whole Foods because it was cheap. Cheap wine should not have a real cork. THIS IS WHY NO ONE LIKES YOU, WHOLE FOODS.)


Pour the wine into a small sauce pan over low-medium heat. Scrape the insides of the vanilla beans into the wine and toss the pods in for good measure. Simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally to infuse. Chop the rhubarb (I like to chop mine super small into 1/2-inch cubes or so.) Remove the pods from the wine carefully and set aside to garnish. Toss the rhubarb into the sauce pan, stirring to coat. Turn the heat up to high and stir a few more times. Remove from heat and add the other 1/4 cup of flour and 3/4 cup of sugar (I used closer to 1/2 cup but it could have stood a bit more sweetness if you're into that kind of thing.)

Pour into a glass baking dish or pie plate, and top with the oat and flour mixture, crumbling it as evenly as possible over the rhubarb. Garnish with the vanilla bean if you want. Bake for 35-45 minutes (I used too much wine in mine so I baked it for 45 minutes and then turned the broiler on for 3 minutes to brown the top.. just keep an eye on it after 30 minutes or so and use good judgement.)

Serve warm, with good ice cream or whipped cream or the rest of the bottle of wine. 

Lonely Chicago Salad

Have you ever seen the movie "Waitress"? It's one of my favorites. In it, the main character makes various types of pies and gives them strange names. One is called "Lonely Chicago Pie".

Well Spider's in Chicago and I'm lonely, so I decided to make myself something easy, healthy and super tasty: salad with an egg.

I love salad and I love eggs. In this recipe, the runny yolk muddles together with the oil and vinegar to make a rich dressing without too much work.

Start with a simple salad. I went with a 50/50 mx of spinach and spring greens, and then some cut up tomatoes. That's all. If you've got more veggies and greens, by all means, add them.

Cook the egg super slowly. If your yolk starts to harden you've ruined everything. Luckily mine did not.

Toss the salad with a scant 1/2 tbs of olive oil and vinegar (depending on the size of your salad, of course. You want the leaves to be lightly dressed without any puddles in the bottom of the bowl. Salt and Pepper generously. Top with the egg, letting the yolk bleed into the greens.

Toss with a fork. Salt and pepper again. Take downstairs and enjoy while you watch Game of Thrones in a much too big bed.