new ingredients, or, rampfest 2010

I realized late last night, after cooking dinner with Kev, having pottered around happily at the Union Square greenmarket earlier that day, following a hangover-curing trip to a Cambodian sandwich shop that I had heard about, that cooking is my hobby. Gardening, too, could also be considered my hobby (and a post about that awaits good photographs). But really, the reason we spend money on food, why we will travel for restaurants, why we will try weird stuff at least once, is because food is a hobby. I had been wanting a banh mi for a while now, and it was totally worth a solo, sandwich-driven trip downtown. It clicked as we sat around with full tummies that I was so content with the dinner we had made, from shopping to concept to eating, and there's just something different about that than most of the other projects I take on. It was fun in the doing, but totally peaceful, too. The immediacy is nice, but the creativity is better.

Last night's chow was inspired, as many people apparently are right now -- judging from the number of chefs I saw carting off literally crates of them -- by ramps. Friends described them as garlicky, oniony, "like little sweet baby leeks," generally delish. They're pretty little things, but look more like something you'd be planting than something you'd pick and eat. I asked the guy who sold them to me what to do with them if fish was also involved, and he said "wrap them around the fish" and the advised me to use that google thing to figure out the rest. He was very serious about the possibilities of the internet.

It's worth the telling, I think, because this was a totally fridge-and-freezer-scavenged menu. And not at all frantic! I had two beets leftover from Passover, Trader Joe's marinated fish in the freezer, some potatoes way back in a cupboard, rosemary on the balcony. I came home with über-fresh asparagus, a bunch of ramps, and some nice little pink fingerling potatoes. Also lilacs and four more tomato plants, but that's neither here nor there. I had the ramp-wrapped fish firmly in mind, and found internet confirmation that baking it would be ideal. Another troll around yielded a roasted beet recipe that called for garlic, but tasting a raw ramp seemed to suggest that they could be a fine mild substitute. Potatoes were going to be roasted in my cast-iron skillet along with the beets, asparagus steamed and topped with either balsamic reduction* or some lime, and the fish baked.

And then, in something I'm recognizing as true to form, I remembered another recipe I had skimmed over. Something involving fish over a potato and ramp puree. Sure, it was more complicated that I needed, and sure, Kev was bringing bread and we'd have plenty to eat, but why not use up those potatoes and get some extra rampiness into the meal? I had also originally thought of doing a cilantro pesto, but didn't want to outdo the ramps. So the compromise was a (very old) potato puree with ramps and a little cilantro thrown in. The asparagus got some lime, olive oil, and coarse salt. Roughly the same temperature oven took care of my beets, my taters, and my fish.**

And so this is what we ate:




And it only took two hours from absolute start to eating! And while the cilantro was a little too brassy and funky (for me) to be in potatoes, the fish was tasty and the ramps were neat. The boys et it all up. The asparagus, honestly, god, I don't know why we eat asparagus from the store when it is this good from a market. It makes me want to turn into a total locavore market snob, it was so incredible and different than the stuff I bought at the grocery store last week. I miss the home farm. The beet recipe is also a total keeper, and was a nice sweet/acidic perk. We drank beer, we ate ramps, and then we ate the massive carrot cake Kev brought down and watched "The Godfather: Part II." Apart from a weird mafia-themed dream, I woke up to the cool and cloudy day incredibly happy.

Any cooking that you've been doing, friends?


* snort all you want, but it's faster than writing "balsamic vinegar that I boil down until it's gooey", and that might be what it could legitimately be called. I snort, too, though. We don't usually traffic in fussy reductions or demi-glaces in the Wabes-Kolz household.

** I need to bake things more, folks - it is SO NICE to pop something in the oven and not have another 2 pots to take care of and meat to watch, fat spattering around. Though the wait time is prohibitive for anytime but the weekends.