Cooking days

Perhaps it's that spring is finally, finally descending upon Boston but I can't get enough vegetables. It helps that I've since discovered Russo's, which I first went to when I made this antipasti platter. In addition to having fantastic prepared foods and cured meats, their produce section is incredible, which was the inspiration for all the things that I was cooking in the past two weeks. These are a few of the highlights, mainly from Sundays, because those become my "cooking days" where I can devote 3 or 4 hours to just thinking up recipes and cooking.

I bought spring onions, which are just onions which are in between scallions and regular onions in terms of maturity. They are typically sweeter and milder than regular onions and are fresh and tender. The famed Vidalia spring onions hail from certain areas of Georgia and have the same sugar content as an apple. However, the ones I picked up were just spring onions. I really struggled with how best to showcase them and I could have just sliced them thin and put them in a salad but left them in the fridge for a little too long. Instead, I made a savory onion jam by first caramelizing them for about 30 minutes in butter, then adding brown sugar and letting the mixture furthur caramelize. I then added a splash of red wine vinegar and reduced for another 5 - 10 minutes. Finally, I added a sprig of rosemary from my new rosemary plant and simmered that for another 5 minutes. The result? This may be my new favorite thing to eat. The jam was sweet and savory, earthy from the rosemary and I have no fault to find with onions cooked in butter. I spread the jam on a dark Lithuanian rye (also from Russo's!) and shaved some extra sharp Cheddar on top.

Next up was zucchini-Parmesan latkes, which I had wanted to make for a long time but didn't get around to it until now. I used a mixture of potato, zucchini and yellow squash for the batter but would recommend only using zucchini and potato - the yellow squash is too soft, wet and full of seeds to be of any use in this recipe. Every variation of this recipe that I searced for online cautioned one thing: make sure to squeeze all the liquid out of the zucchini before frying, otherwise the batter doesn't crisp up. I found the best way to do this was to salt the zucchini, let it sit for 10 minutes then squeeze the liquid out of the shredded zucchini with a cheese cloth. I then added lemon zest, lemon juice, a healthy grating of Parmigiano Reggiano, salt and pepper and panko bread crumbs. Then, I (or Jason, because the oil started spattering and I screamed) just pan fried each latke in canola oil. I served these with a lemon dill sauce made with sour cream, dill (snipped from the Aerogarden!), and lemon zest. The result? Delicious, and way better than the Whole Food versions from my childhood. The frying makes the outsides crispy and burnt like real latkes, and I season with a much heavier hand. The next brunch where I have to impress someone, I'm making these.

Finally, this past Sunday I cooked a seafood risotto. I've been dying to make risotto for a long time, because I like savory carbs and the texture is similar to that of Chinese porridge which I also really like. Sunday was the day to finally do it because I had a Tupperware of fish stock with a limited shelf life in my refridgerator, made when we had leftover fish heads and bones from the fried tilapia adventure. At first, I wanted to make a cioppino but then I saw a bag of arborio rice in the cupboard so decided risotto was the way to go.

Let me just say this. Risotto is not the dish to make if you are a fretful cook. I stood over my pot ladling fish broth into my pot, trying not to have a panic attack. Too much? Not enough? When does this goddamn thing ever finish cooking? Is the bottom burning? When do I add the fish? It was a nail-biting thirty minutes. In the end, the risotto turned out beautifully, creamy with a bit of bite. I included some portabello mushrooms, whose inclusion also occured because of a limited shelf life, peas, tilapia, squid and shrimp. The most difficult part of this is really the constant stirring. I've read articles that say to the contrary, like this post on Bitten but I figured for my first try, I should follow the rules of risotto to a tee. But like Emily Weinstein, I had to reach across the kitchen to stir with one hand and wash mushrooms with the other (only possible when you operate in the world's smallest kitchen or when you have gorillas arms). Luckily, Jason is an excellent sous chef and handled most of the fish mongering.

Topped the risotto off with dill and chives from the Aerogarden. That thing is already starting to pay itself off!