Bibimbap, revisited

Just a shorty today, to show off some delicious bibimbap I threw together from ingredients I didn't make myself. I did cook the rice and arrange everything, but unless you ferment your own doraji and kimchi (I didn't), all you're really doing is arranging bits on a bowl of steaming white rice. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I don't even have a stone bowl to make this a proper dolsot bibimbap. In fact, I only made this because I didn't have any bread for the intended roast beef sandwich and realized I had a fridge full of Korean pickled things and a sack of Calrose rice. I warmed up the roast beef with some sesame oil and nestled it among the banchan I had on hand (clockwise from the top): kimchi, a crunchy seaweed salad, pickled cucumber (I had two kinds: a spicy Korean oijangajji and salty-sweet green Japanese aokappa) and doraji (balloon flower root). I guess I did saute some shiitake mushrooms in soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil. Top with an egg and gochujang. I usually use an egg fried over easy, but tried it raw this time. I prefer fried.

Whaddaya know, I cooked after all.

Serve with a glass of soju and since you already added Japanese pickles you may as well sprinkle with some shichimi togarashi.

Lobster mushroom, sweet corn and watercress risotto

This is the best time of year. The weather is up to its typical late summer bipolar antics, and while I still have sweet Silver Queen corn down here in the Valley (thanks to sunny days), the mountains are cooling off enough in the evenings that lobster mushrooms have made their way into my neighborhood fancy grocery store.

Scott had a bee in his bonnet for some lemony chicken and risotto, and even though those are a springtime jones, such is his wantlessness that I tend to cater to his every (infrequent) craving. And despite the fact that our garden is a cornucopian money-shot of nightshades (six tomato varieties for a dozen plants total, four chile varieties and an eggplant), this third trimester heartburn started kicking in today, and I just didn't feel like one more helping of spaghetti Margherita (with a masochistic craving for extra chile flake).

I melted some butter in the pan while I thawed some homemade chicken stock (frozen in June), and sweated a quarter of a tiny red onion with two minced garlic cloves. I added a drib of olive oil to prevent the butter from browning and added one fist-sized lobster mushroom, sliced and broken into bite-sized pieces. I tossed in a couple handfuls of arborio rice and stirred it around, doing the "making risotto" thing until time to add a glass of chardonnay (now that I'm getting late in the pregnancy, I'm not afraid to taste the wine that goes into my cooking). I added splashes of the rich chicken stock, stirring lovingly, and then added an ear's worth of corn cut fresh from the cob.

A few fat pinches of lemon zest went in at the end, along with some fresh thyme and a few handfuls of chopped watercress. The peppery, nasturtium verdure of the watercress slapped the sleepy, smalltown white carbs right in the kisser, the mineral parsley gave it some backbone, and a sprinkling of crumbly fat and salt Parmigiano Reggiano gave it cheeks.

Enjoy with a crispy pear cider, or I suppose a nice Gewürztraminer, if you had one laying around.

Misoyaki Maki

We'd been invited to a champagne-tasting party, to which we were instructed to bring an appie or somesuch. Easy, right? Except that I totally procrastinated, and it started snowing. Hard. I didn't want to press my luck and brave a drive to the store for flour (I really wanted to make little empanadas, but couldn't make dough - who the fuck runs out of flour? Pioneers?), so I had to really wrack my brain. What in the hell could I scrape together? I didn't even have something fake to cook and sauce up. Like that one time when all I had was some quince jelly in the freezer and a thawed-out boneless leg of lamb, and hastily threw together "ooh, how 'bout some Moroccan-spiced lamb kebab with cardamom-quince glaze" that were doled out onto a platter with toothpicks and greedily devoured. Turns out a lot of people did their part, thought ahead and brought hummus to that party. A lot of different hummus, and my one platter of spicy, last-minute meat.

I am, if nothing else, the Queen of Pulling One Out of Her Ass. I looked through the cupboards. Nothing. Some fucking cans of fish and tomatoes, a can of lychee and coconut milk, and a can of mock abalone. Gross. Look again, see the jars of starch lined up all soldierlike: cous cous, bulgur wheat, barley, lentils, some aged jau mein (that's ay-jed, not to be confused with the savory patina of proper storage), arborio rice and calrose rice. Sigh. Look again. Grab cans of smoked black cod and sturgeon (from local waters), jar of calrose, then shuffle across the kitchen to the "Asienne" cabinet and grab the teriyaki-flavored nori sheets, the black sesame seeds, tamari and sesame oil, some sake and mirin and gochujang. To the fridge for shiro miso, some scallion and young ginger.

I was going to make mini onigiri, it turned out. With misoyaki filling. I forgot about the jar of umeboshi in the fridge, evidently. I cooked the rice on the stovetop, and then pulled it off to cool in the snow. I chopped together the drained fish, and blobs or glugs of everything else until it was perfectly seasoned and gingery. I sprinkled in some togarashi to give that proper umami, and then we mashed up little fish-filled rice balls until the rice was all gone, wrapping a little fingertip sheet of nori over each. Half the fish was still left. The party loved it, and the hostess even proclaimed it better than the onigiri in Tokyo. It worked well with the champagne, which cut through the rich, salty smoke of the misoyaki, the effervescence pushing past the huge starch molecules on its way into the tickly cilia of the olfactory system.

The next day, while Scott nursed a wicked champagne hangover (I never knew those even existed), I twisted up a fatty nori maki from the last remaining regular sheet of nori in our cupboard, with freshly cooked sushi rice (stirred and fanned with a pinch of sugar and salt, and a splash of rice vinegar). It was a tasty and quiet lunch, and a great way to pat myself on the back for thinking on my feet. It's good to be Queen.

Bibimbop

Meeehhhhhhh. Weh!

An ass-busting week in the field, an all-night Halloween bender followed by an all-day wicked hangover, then I started my woman times yesterday. I have not given less of a shit about blogging since I chopped off the tip my pinky last spring. I haven't blogged in more than a week, and no one has even noticed! Cue tiniest violin in the world playing my fucking song.


Needless to say, I need a little hug. Sure, the husband is good for a pitying hug when I give him that look (he has a special way that makes you feel comforted, but not patronized, even when you know you're being an unfuckable hag), but nothing can hug my insides like a bowl of bibimbop.

Bibimbop is the ultimate Korean comfort food - I surmise it's what Korean moms make their rainy-day kids instead of grilled chee and Campbell's tomato soup by the fire. A hot bowl of steamed rice top with bits and ends: leftover steak, thinly-sliced and dressed with black vinegar and sesame oil (throw some leftover eggplant in there too to soak up some beefy juice); some sautéed shiitakes (from my shiitake logs) marinated in mirin, sugar, thick soy sauce and black pepper; thinly-sliced cucumber quickled in rice vinegar, sugar, salt and black sesame seeds; some wilted bean sprouts hit with a splash of mirin and sake; yam boiled in soy sauce and sugar; and red bell pepper and onion browned with sesame oil, chile and garlic. I have some leftover gai lan with oyster sauce, throw that on there too. Oh, and you can't forget a spanky wad of kimchi. Top with an egg fried over easy (stir the raw yolk into the hot rice) and a blob of gochujang. Commence toe-curl.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Gossip Girl and Heroes to watch.

Vegetable fried rice

This is all I have to show for my blogless week. I've been trying to, once again, wittle down the produce drawer in the fridge, and have been cooking a bunch of uninteresting pasta and stir-fry with the various vegetables. Do you know how "meh" penne with kale pesto and vegetables looks in a photograph? Feh.

The stir-fry from Thursday wasn't bad, if a little heavy on the hoisin and oyster sauce, but it was Project Runway (and debate) night. So I skipped the photos altogether. Last night saw the conversion of leftover rice and the remaining broccoli, peppers, shiitakes, scarlet runners (I've been picking them slightly underripe and slicing them, pod and all) and kale, as well as half a block of silken tofu and an egg, into fried rice. I also added some surimi, but it isn't crab at all, and didn't elevate it the way I hoped.

It was good, just not like the salty Chinese-American fried rice I was craving. It was, however, flavorful and healthy. Now I just have to eat the last gallon-sized bags of pattypans and yellow pear tomatoes (the last ones before I compost the vines!). Maybe I'll just bake the whole lot in cheesy bechamel.

Roasted pattypan and garlic risotto

I really love my new camera, by the way.

It's almost that time of year where all of my vegetables start cracking and splitting under the spank of too much hard rain, and I've been frantically harvesting all of the last of my pattypans and tomatoes before they become food for the gastropods. The tomatoes are now coming off the vine green, especially since I discovered that they, like baby okra, are fucking delicious pickled with garlic and chilis in a fiery curry brine (don't worry, Cookie, I'll show you soon). The squash, though, require a little more creativity.

Tonight I diced and roasted five or six of the baby pâtisson with some minced garlic in a hot oven until browned. Saute some minced onion (I had an Italian red torpedo that is shallot-like in appearance and flavor) and a handful of arborio rice in a nice big spoonful of duck fat. Proceed with normal risotto-making procedure until about 3 minutes to the end, when you add some slivered green beans (the hangers-on from a late bloom) and the roasted squash.

Finish by stirring in a few spoonfuls of leftover arugula-pumpkin seed pesto, and then swab another spoonful on top. Hit it with some Parm Redge and maybe a chiffonade of squash blossom if you're feeling flirtatious. Enjoy with an acidic white - we have a Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi (Raphael 2007) that I'm really liking. Grassy, sprightly, with kefir lime and a little bee sting in the kisser.

Onigiri is filled with Mother Love

I love onigiri. They're like Japanese arancini. The first time I had it, I was at my friend Kayoko's house. She was my first exposure to real Japanese culture (hentai notwithstanding), and she would frequently host informal dinner parties for her friends and Portland International School co-workers. I was one of the few, fortunate gaijin invited to these events. Sometimes, when the fillings for nori-maki would run out, she and her Japanese friends would just use up the remaining sushi rice with spoonfuls of miso, or umeboshi from the jar in her fridge to slap together some onigiri, which would get passed around on a large plate like some kind of umami brownie.

When Scott and I visited Tokyo a year ago, we struggled to adjust to the time change. We'd wake up at around 4:30am Tokyo time, starving and needing caffeine (the hotel didn't start serving "koh-hee" until like 7:00 or 8:00). Unfortunately, the only thing open that early was the 7-11, which was where we obtained our breakfast every morning. An ice-cold can of Boss cafè au lait and a couple of onigiri triangles from the cold deli case, pull up a curb and eat your breakfast. If it weren't strange enough to be shorts and flip flops-clad, tattooed white people, add 1) being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at a bird's hour and 2) eating whilst seated at a curb, which is never done (eating outdoors or while walking is somewhat unusual in Tokyo). Fortunately, the only people up early enough to gawk were the taxi drivers and convenience store clerks, and I'm sure they've seen worse.

But those 100 円 (~$1) onigiri were the best! Since I'm illiterate in katakana, it was always a surprise what flavor I was going to get. Sometimes it'd be salmon, sometimes miso, sometimes egg. I loved nibbling through the nori and rice into the interior, and trying to figure out what it was. I tried to make mental notes of what I was tasting, for when we got home.

I make misoyaki quite often - it's such a simple way to enjoy fish, if you keep a tub of miso in your fridge (and a few other common Japanese ingredients in your cupboard). We always have a little leftover, and once in awhile, I end up with enough to warrant re-use. Usually, I'll just nuke it and eat it straight from the tupperware, but this time, I used the leftover shiro maguro (albacore) and the genmai (Japanese brown rice) to pat a few onigiri into a meal.

Just flake the fish with a fork and sprinkle with sesame seeds and a pinch of salt. Then take a ball of rice (cold or warm) into wet hands, flatten slightly with your fingertips, and place a spoonful of filling in the center. Put another pinch of rice on top and form into a ball (covering the filling with the rice). Pat it into a slightly flattened triangle (the usual shape, but you can make any shape you want, really). Then wrap a piece of nori around the outside so that the onigiri may be taken from a plate without the rice sticking to your fingers.

I keep a tub of these teriyaki-flavored nori strips in my pantry. I bought them on a whim, but they're not substantial enough for just snacking. Sometimes I cut them into very thin strips with scissors to sprinkle on rice, but I've decided that their true calling is wrapping onigiri. Instead of making triangles, I formed rounded squares and made a criss-cross with the nori strips. These were neat little packages of umami, ready for a light dinner or a bento lunch.

Next time you have some leftover fish (or any other salty food) and rice, why not try your hand at onigiri? Heck, it's worth cooking rice and fish just to make them. Ittadakimasu!

Artichoke heart risotto with nettle-pumpkin seed pesto

I always talk about how I am a whore for good-looking produce, and how I am completely powerless against the imp god of Ambitious Cooking (okay, I made him up, but I implore any one of you to tell me you aren't his bitch, too).

This dish, like so many others, is inspired by the "fuck sake, this has about one minute left on it, why the hell did I buy a(n) [artichoke/bag of gai lan/tub of kimchi] the size of a [fetus/dumpster/Collosus]? What in the frick am I going to do with it?" realization that seems to be par for the course these days. This time, the artichoke won.

This, my friends, is why I never use fresh artichokes. I filled my compost bowl and covered the cutting board. It'll be years before I forget the trouble they are, but I will, and I'll get wooed by another choice specimen (this one was as big as a cantaloupe), promise I'll use it, then shake my fist at that imp god of Ambitious Cooking when I'm elbow deep in spiny thistle down and stiff, leafy bracts.

This, THIS is all I got out of all that mess! And no, I don't feel like scraping my incisors across a sepal to try to drag an atom of thistleflesh into my gaping maw, so don't lecture me about wasting all that good stuff.

But this time I also had some inspirado from my buddy Peter over at cookblog (I call him Jube, short for Jubilation T. Cornpwn, because he says "there are just too many Peters", and I say "that's what she said."). He's been working with nettles a lot lately, springtime green they are, and I live pretty close to a little creek where I can harvest my own. So on Sunday I donned my leather gauntlet gloves to keep the needles off my skin, and snipped myself a bag of tender nettle tips.

I spent all day in the field, and it was raining all day AND I forgot my rain gear in the other truck so I got really drenched today. Therefore, I needed creamy starch and I wanted to make a risotto (it's easier than gnocchi, and it makes its own sauce). I figured the easiest way to get nettles into risotto was to puree it (Jube makes a nifty nettle sauce all the time), so I blanched it (deactivating the venomous trichomes), wrung out the juice and chopped it up. I toasted some pumpkin seeds and blended them with garlic, salt, olive oil and the green wad of nettle. Added a little thyme and mint and whizzed it all up.

I cleaned the artichoke hearts up real nice, quartered and then thinly sliced them. Boil for a couple minutes in acidulated water (a splash of vinegar does it) to keep them from browning. Heat up some butter and olive oil in and sauté the drained artichokes with some thinly sliced spring onion . Add the arborio rice and do the "making the risotto" thing. Stir in a few heaping spoonfuls of the pesto, salt and pepper to taste. Finish with a sexy knob of French cultured butter and some shaved Parm Redge.

Buon appetito!

Wild prawn and cod paella with smoked sturgeon and heirloom tomatoes

I craved the lusty sunshine aroma of saffron and of smoky pimentón. I had fresh peppers and flatleaf parsley, a nubile pink brandywine tomato and a bag of rice. I didn't have any bivalves around, and even though it's practically not a paella without mussels or clams (shit, some langostines would be nice, too), I did have some gorgeous trawl-caught wild gulf prawns*, some California (true) cod and some smoked Columbia River sturgeon (compliments of my dad, the intrepid sportsman). Paella was definitely on the menu.

*Pardon the distance from my table! I'm trying to be better about at least sticking to my coast when sourcing my protein and produce, but sometimes I fold a little. At least they're not farmed. Baby steps!

Such a basic dish, if you keep things like smoked paprika and saffron in your kitchen! You don't even need a paella pan (I need one more piece specialtyware like I need a hole in the head), although without one I will never achieve that golden crust prized by my Spanish countrywomen (right, Núria?). Come to think of it, I don't have a crockpot, so that means I can have a paella pan (and what the hell, throw in a nice tagine for good measure), right?

Dice up some bell pepper (red, yellow or orange; I think green is too strong-tasting), onion, garlic and tomato. Heat olive oil in the a pan and add the vegetables (except the tomato). Fry for a minute, then add the rice and paprika. Stir-fry the rice for a few minutes, then add a splash of white wine and some chicken or fish stock. Add a bay leaf, a pinch of red chili flake and a pinch of saffron threads, then stir and cover. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until the rice is done, then take off the lid, stir in the seafood, salt and pepper, tomatoes and chopped parsley, and stick the whole thing in a hot oven until the top of the rice gets a little browned and crispy. Top with more chopped parsley.

For Jube and Norm (and other oenophiles) - I paired this with a Domaine Labbé Vin de Savoie Abymes 2006. (Yes, it was displayed directly beneath the seafood case, else I'd never thunkit.) The minerality tapers off the juicy fruit notes, while quelling the acidity a bit. It complemented the floral saffron and sweet tomatoes in the paella perfectly, and cut right through the rich starch and seafood. Even though I don't usually think about wine, I at least know what it tastes like!

Roasted tomato risotto with rabbit and andouille

Okay, for all intents and purposes, this is jambalaya. For those of you that are unfamiliar with southern American cuisine in general (and Creole cuisine in particular), jambalaya is a rice dish traditionally prepared with sausage (such as andouille), chicken and seafood. Cajun jambalaya usually doesn't include tomatoes, and tends to rely more on game proteins. Sticklers will tell you that andouille is really Cajun and not used in Creole cuisine, which tends to use less offal (of which andouille is usually made). Mine usually leans toward the Creole side, but this time I bent the rules a bit. Also, I didn't have any shrimp or shrimp stock at hand.

Fussier than a traditional jambalaya, this time I used arborio rice instead of a plain long-grain rice, and rabbit instead of my usual simple chicken and shrimp. Sure, the andouille smiles through in ubiquity, but takes a back seat to a lagomorph. I really wasn't trying to be fancy or anything, it's actually just what I had in my coffers.

Derail: Mother's Day is right around the corner. Fun fact: my mom has been dead for three years. She died tragically at the age of 49, only 11 days after being diagnosed with colon cancer. Okay, that's a heavy bomb to drop, and really seems waaaay outta left field, but I suppose it bears mention. I'm not upset or anything, so relax. Besides, I feel like sharing.

Another fun fact: my mom was kind of a shitty cook. This is primarily because she didn't really like cooking (she was a line cook at a dingy jazz club-cum-sports bar for some years), but also because my family was always really poor. She did make a dish when I was a kid that she called "Shrimp Creole", which featured bay shrimp (she must've made this on the day we got food stamps). She probably learned it in Home Ec and just kept it in her little tin box of recipes. It tasted like the sort of thing American girls in the late 60s were taught to cook in public schools, so that they might one day impress a man and land a husband.

Most of my culinary identity is founded on taking the dishes of my childhood and kicking them up the proverbial notch. So I make jambalaya and cornbread - just not with Minute Rice or Jiffy mix.


Roasted tomato risotto with rabbit and andouille
This really is just jambalaya if you add shrimp, use chicken instead of rabbit, and use long grain rice instead of arborio rice. This recipe probably serves 8, but it's great leftover. The leftovers would also probably make really excellent arancini, if you were so inclined.

1 lb. small tomatoes (like those hothouse toms), quartered
2 tbsp. minced shallot
pinch salt
1 tbsp olive oil

Arrange tomatoes in a baking dish and sprinkle with shallot, salt and oil. Roast at 400 for 30 minutes or until browned and squidgy.

Half rabbit fryer (half saddle, 1 front and 1 hindquarter - should include the liver, heart and a kidney)
2 strips thick-cut bacon, diced
1/2 smallish onion, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
1/2 each green and red bell pepper, diced
~1/2 lb. andouille sausage (~8-10" long), sliced into 1/4"-thick slices
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups (or so) arborio rice
1 cup budget white wine
6 cups chicken stock, simmering
a handful of parsley, chopped
salt to taste

Seasoning (feel free to shoot from the hip a little, people - it's how you learn):
fat tsp or two smoked paprika
tsp chili powder (I make my own by grinding dried mulato and ancho chiles)
several cracks black pepper
two or three fat pinches chili flake
fat pinch of fried thyme, crushed
few dashes Worcestershire sauce
few dashes bitters
few dashes hot sauce
coupla drops liquid smoke

While the tomatoes are roasting, pan-roast the rabbit (not including the organs) for a few minutes on each side so you can get the meat off the bones. If you're very clever, you're using this time to have a glass of wine and get your prep done. Really, you should be multitasking here. If you were, by now you'd be saying to yourself, "Oh, look, the rabbit is ready".

Pull the meat from the bones and dice the loin and leg meat, liver, kidney and heart. Since the tomatoes are still roasting (because you're so fast at your prep, look at you go!), go ahead and throw those bunny bones in the pot of chicken stock that I just know is simmering on the stove (you are making stock from scratch, right? I mean, that chicken carcass in your freezer isn't going to simmer itself!).

Render the bacon until browned, and add the veg. Saute for a minute or two over med/med-high until glossy. Add (and brown) the andouille. Add the arborio rice and dry seasonings (listed below). Stir the rice a bit and cook for a minute, then add the bunny organs, wet seasonings, wine and tomatoes. From now on cook the rice as though you were making regular risotto (we've been through this already). Five minutes from the end, add the rabbit meat to warm and cook through. Add the parsley and salt at the end. If you're feeling sassy, add a knob of butter at the end to soften things up a bit.

Serve with hot sauce and cornbread (recipe follows)



Yankee Cornbread
This is my bastardization of Joy of Cooking's northern cornbread recipe, cooked southern style in a cast-iron skillet with bacon fat. I know it's not traditional southern cornbread, but at least it's not a box of Jiffy mix.

1 tbsp bacon fat (please tell me you keep a tub in the fridge like me)
1-1/4 c cornmeal (I used blue and yellow)
3/4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar (optional, but I like it)
2 large eggs
2/3 c buttermilk
2/3 c milk
3 tbsp melted butter
1/2 c frozen corn (I also like to add minced jalapeños, but didn't this time)

Stick a 10" cast-iron skillet with the bacon fat in the oven that's preheating to 425. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients (eggs and milks). Add wet to dry, mix, and stir in the melted butter and corn. Pour batter into now-hot skillet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until browned on top and toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the middle.

Toasted leftover cornbread makes a great open-faced sammich with thick bacon, melted sharp cheddar and roasted peppers.


Shout out to my girl Yen: thanks for your mom's recipe. I think your email is bouncing me, because I've sent you a couple. That, or you're ignoring me.

Spring chicken and asparagus-pea risotto with mint

'Lenten Rose' hellebore in my garden. I collect hellebores, jack-in-the-pulpits and euphorbias.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the old adage, "she's no spring chicken". It's strange, because I generally feel pretty sassy and chic for being a chick over thirty, but I go through periods of feeling a bit fwumpy and old. This is probably not coincidental to shopping for clothing at Forever 21 at the mall.

And there it is. See that? I just psychoanalyzed myself in front of all of you and am already cutting myself some fucking slack and enjoying a nice cocktail and some delicious, white carbs.

I made this springtime dish to celebrate spring's arrival and to engage in battle for some Tupperware over at Ben's joint. "What's Cooking?", his blog asks. Oh I'll tell you what the fuck is cookin': well, I guess I already told you in the title of this post.

Spring makes me thing of so many things - the fecundity of rough-skinned newts; the deafening aroma of daphne blossoms across the street; and fresh chicken, skin painted with rich, butter-yellow fat. But what greater harbinger of spring is there, you wonder, than asparagus? (Well I thought of morels, too, but they weren't at New Seasons yet and I didn't have time to drive 6 hours to the Rogue National Forest to pick some.) Its little lily shoots, so tender-crisp and verdant, just perfect with snap peas for a springtime risotto. And how about some nice spring chicken, with good crunchy salt and pepper and paper-thin lemon slices under the skin? You can already smell the warm hyacinth and mossy underbrush, can't you?

Lemony spring chicken: For two people, get a double breast with the bone out but skin on. Flatten it out and lazily pound it into a half-assed paillard with the side of your fist. Give a good pinch of coarse sea salt and fresh-ground pepper to the skin-side, then slide your fingers between the skin and flesh and ease a few slices of lemon in. Skin-side down onto a rippin' hot grill pan (if it's hot enough, the chicken will literally squeal when you place it on the pan), and S&P the (non-skin) flesh side. When you get some good grill marks on the skin, flip it, turn off heat, and pop it in a 350-degree oven while your risotto is cooking. When it's done to the touch- test (learn this trick), rest for five minutes and then slice on the bias, taking care not to tear the skin too much while you slice through the lemon.

Asparagus-pea risotto with mint: YOU MUST USE HOMEMADE CHICKEN STOCK. That's just how it goes, sorry. I squoze in an hour to do this, during which time I read funny shit on the internets. You can make time, too, or you will just hafta wait until Saturday to make this. (If you're very clever, you already have some in your freezer.)

You know how to make risotto. If you don't, just go ahead and flip open Joy of Cooking to the How To Cook Risotto page. S'cool, I'll wait. Okay, back? Good. Cut off the woody ends of like 4 or 5 asparagus spears, then dice up the good parts (reserving the tenderest tips). Similarly dice up a handful of snap peas (fresh-shelled peas would also work, but wouldn't need to be chopped). In your pan, melt a pat of butter and a drizzle of olive oil, and sweat some shallots. When things are smelling pretty good, get going on the rest of it (toss in the arborio rice, stir until the "white dot" appears, splash of chardonnay, ladlesful of stock while tirelessly stirring, stirring, coaxing every molecule of starch out of each motherfucking grain until your hands bleed, etc.). About midway through, add the diced asparagus stems (not the tips, though! these are tender and don't need that long). Add a few scratches of nutmeg and a fat pinch of lemon zest. After like 5 more minutes (or two ladles) add some fresh thyme, too. Then toss in the asparagus tips and the peas with the last ladle of stock. Salt to taste (my homemade stock is never salted). Top with lots of parm and a chiffonade of mint.

Serve with a chilled Prosecco, which will enhance the citrus notes in the chicken and risotto, and get you buzzed if you polish off two bottles.

Heh, oops, this photo was shot before I added parm! I am such a fucking amateur!