Wrinkled Potatoes with Red and Green Mojo

This weekend I had a rooftop dinner party with my dear friends Leah and Angel to celebrate the start of summer and the fact that I have a rooftop. (Even though it's tar and has no furniture, and we're not technically allowed up there,  it's still a hot commodity by Manhattan standards, and a good place for an evening picnic.) Angel is from Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago just off the northwest coast of Africa. So in his honor, we made papas arrugadas - baby"wrinkled potatoes" - with red and green mojo dipping sauces, a typical Canarian tapas.

The potatoes get their wrinkled skin and fine coat of crystallized salt from being boiled in very salty water, then drained and steamed. (The potatoes naturally retain just enough salt on their skin to enhance their fluffy interiors without tasting too salty.) The customary dipping sauces, a mojo verde with cilantro and a mojo rojo with smoked paprika, are garlicky, pungent, complex in flavor, and each very different from the other. They are quick to make, and you can use the leftover mojo on many things - grilled meats like steak and lamb chops, on pasta like a pesto, fish tacos....

These potatoes are perfect for a party: Bite-size finger food that everyone will eat. They're light, starchy, vegetarian, and gluten-free,  yet rich and savory enough for the carnivores. Most importantly, they soak up alcohol and they're easy to prepare with a few very inexpensive ingredients.

For every 2 pounds of potatoes (count on 1 pound per 1-2 hungry people, with other appetizers) you will need:

2 pounds baby potatoes (I had the best luck with small red potatoes, no more than an inch in diameter.)
1 cup table salt
Water to cover

Directions:

Rinse the potatoes well. Place in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Cover potatoes with water and add salt. Mix to dissolve the salt. If the potatoes do not float, add more salt. (The Canarians once used seawater, so that should give you a sense of how salty the water should be.) Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes until the potatoes are tender. (They are done when a sharp knife easily pierces through to the center of the potato.)

Drain almost all the water from the pot, leaving just a quarter inch or so. Return the pot to the stove with the lid off and, over low heat, shake to distribute the salty water over the potatoes. (Some recipes call for adding another layer of dry salt to the potatoes at this stage, but I found that wasn't necessary.) Cook for 5 minutes, shaking the pot regularly, until all the water is evaporated and the salt is crystallized on the potatoes.

Now turn off the heat, put the lid back on, and let the potatoes steam in their own moisture for 5-10 minutes until the skins are wrinkled. If your lid isn't heavy and doesn't fit the pot tightly, you can put a cotton dishtowel under the lid to create a better seal, or simply drape the towel over the potatoes. Serve warm with red and green mojos.

Red Mojo (Makes about 3/4 cup, enough for at least 4-6 pounds of potatoes alongside green mojo) 

8 cloves garlic, grated on a microplane

1 teaspoon kosher salt

4 teaspoons smoked paprika (It's important that it be smoked, rather than regular paprika. The flavor is intense and amazing.)

1/2 -1 teaspoon dried chili/red pepper flakes, the kind you put on pizza

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons sherry vinegar

2 teaspoons water

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1/2 - 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Tradition calls for making the mojo with a mortar and pestle. You would mash the garlic and salt with the pestle, then mix in the spices. Then you would slowly drizzle in the olive oil and add the lemon juice and vinegar. I used a blender. Add the garlic, salt, spices, vinegar, lemon juice, and water to your blender or food processor. On high speed, add the olive oil in a thin stream until it's completely integrated. Serve at room temperature.

 

Green Mojo (Makes over 1/2 cup, enough for at least 4-6 pounds of potatoes alongside red mojo)

6 cloves garlic, grated on a microplane

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 bunch cilantro, including leaves and tender stems, roughly chopped (2 to 2 1/2 packed cups of leaves and stems)

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

2 teaspoons sherry-wine vinegar

2 teaspoons water

Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Add the garlic, salt, cilantro, cumin, vinegar, water, and lemon juice to your blender or food processor. On high speed, slowly drizzle in the olive oil until it's integrated. Serve at room temperature. 

Menu Note: I served my papas arrugadas with oven-broiled shrimp. (I adapted my previous recipe for a more Spanish flavor: For each pound of shrimp, use 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon regular, not smoked, paprika, the zest of 1/2 lemon, salt, and olive oil. Serve with lemon wedges, a bowl for the shells, and lots of napkins.) We had a salad of baby mustard greens in a simple mustard vinaigrette, and Leah brought a delicious Manchego-style cheese drizzled with honey and Marcona almonds.

Summer Peach Compote with Lavender

These flavors are a killer combination. They're so intense and summery, you'll feel like you've been transported to the South of France. Besides the lavender and a touch of cinnamon, the secret ingredient here is salt. It really and truly makes the difference between a pleasant fruit dessert and an extraordinary burst of flavor.

The finished product is very versatile. You can serve it warm or cold. The fruit is sturdy enough to eat as a simple dessert with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some crumbled amaretto cookies. It's thick enough to use as a sort of jam on toast. Try it for breakfast on yogurt or oatmeal. If you need a dinner party dessert, make individual peach trifles in wine glasses by layering cubes of store-bought pound cake sprinkled with brandy, whipped cream, and the compote.

For an ice cream topping for 2-3 (just under a cup of compote) you will need:

3 RIPE Peaches. They should give when you press lightly with your thumb and smell intensely peachy. Most of the time when you buy them in the grocery store, they will be hard and need a couple of days sitting on your counter (NOT IN THE FRIDGE!) in a closed paper bag to ripen. Cut in half, remove pits, peel off skins, and cut each half into 4 slices. The riper the peaches, the easier the skins will pull right off. If you think you'll have trouble removing the skins, you can scald the whole peaches in hot water. Put them in a large bowl, pour in boiling water to cover, and let them sit for 30 seconds. Then run them under cold water. Now the skins will fall away under your knife. I prefer yellow peaches, I think they have a deeper peach flavor than white.
2/3 cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon dried or fresh lavender buds. The buds should be blue, not brown. Check for mold and remove any leaves or stems. Make sure you are using culinary grade lavender that is grown organically. English lavender is a good choice. If you try using a strong smelling lavender variety that is meant for sachets and potpourri, your compote will taste harsh, bitter, and medicinal. There are many websites and herb stores that sell dried culinary lavender online. I found mine at the Union Square Greenmarket in NYC. 

Directions: 

In a heavy bottomed sauce pan, bring the peaches, water, sugar, salt, and cinnamon to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring and scraping the bottom occasionally. Now add the lavender and cook for another 5-10 minutes until the peaches are soft and the sauce has reduced by 1/2 to 2/3. You want the sauce to be thick and syrupy. I add the lavender near the end of cooking because I want to preserve its blue color and brightness of flavor. Serve warm or keep in a jar in the fridge for a week or so. 

Note: If you prefer peaches that are firmer and less cooked, simply reduce the water by 1/3, reduce the cooking time to 10 or 15 minutes, and add the lavender in the last 5 minutes of cooking.

No-knead Bread

When I was growing up, we never made bread at home. It seemed like an intensive project that required specialized knowledge of yeast and gluten levels in different types of flour, not to mention physical effort, space to spread out and work the dough, and a lot of cleanup. Besides, we were lucky that in the Bay Area, there are a lot of wonderful artisan bakeries that sell to local grocery stores. Good bread was not hard to come by. But since I moved to New York and started cooking, I felt a need to try baking my own. Wheat bread is, after all, a staple of the Western diet, and I didn't think I could call myself a cook without knowing how to bake bread. And I couldn't find a bakery in my neighborhood that made a really solid loaf.

So a couple of weeks ago, when I discovered the No-Knead Bread recipe that Mark Bittman adapted from Jim Lahey (of Sullivan Street Bakery) for the New York Times back in 2006, I had to try it.  The idea is simple: Mix together flour, water, salt, and yeast into a dough that's so wet, you couldn't knead it if you tried. Let it sit at room temperature for 12-18 hours (the first "rise") until little bubbles cover the surface. Form it into a ball, let it rise again (the second "rise") for a couple of hours, and bake it in a heavy pot or Dutch oven with a lid for an hour or so. (Using the lid creates steam, which in turn creates a nice, thin, crispy crust.) But after a couple of run throughs, and reading some reviews online, I felt the recipe needed a little tweaking.

First of all, the timing is a little tricky. A first rise of 12-18 hours, not including an additional three for a second rise and baking, is a commitment of almost a full day. Just think about it - you mix the dough at 8am before work - 12 hours later, at 8pm, it's too late to make the bread for dinner, and you still have 3 hours of a second rise/bake ahead of you. And that's NOT giving the first rise the full suggested 18 hours, which would put you at 2am. Try mixing it at night before bed, and 18 hours later, it's 3pm, when you're supposed to be at work. You get the idea. The rising times are supposed to be flexible enough to work around your schedule. But even Cathy Erway of the blog Not Eating Out in New York, herself a big fan of Bittman's recipe, writes in her new book The Art of Eating In that if you let the dough sit more than 18 hours on the counter, it can develop a funky, over-fermented odor.

And after all that, when I actually make the bread, I found the texture and crust to be wonderful, but the flavor to be flat and a little off - it tasted fine, if bland at first, but left a strange, lingering aftertaste that stayed in my mouth for hours. Other adaptations, notably the Cooks Illustrated version, call for the addition of vinegar and beer to perk up the flavor, but that doesn't work if you're adding sugar or fruit or other sweet flavors to the dough. So I started to look into other no-knead techniques that would offer more flexible timing and better flavor.

My friend Meg, a bread baker since cooking for her dining co-op in college, turned me on to the idea of a slow first rise in the fridge. This produces a more developed flavor and expands the window in which you can let the yeast do its work without over-fermenting. I played with different types of flour, baking temperatures, types of yeast, etc. and after going through a lot of flour, I came up with an adaptation of Bittman's recipe that produces a rustic, nicely textured, and very flavorful loaf with a delicious crust that I think you will be really pleased with. But I'm by no means the expert, and my experimentation continues. And different types of flour need different amounts of yeast and produce very different breads. If you have ideas on how to improve/add to/adapt this recipe, thoughts on bread in general, or want to share how your bread turns out, please write in the comments section!

You will need:

Note: Health food stores that sell dry ingredients in bulk are great for experimenting with bread. You can buy lots of different flours in the exact quantities you need.

1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour, plus more for dusting. All purpose or bread flour (higher gluten) both work well
1 cup rye flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 teaspoons table salt
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (Not instant yeast or "rapid rise.")
1/4 cup warm, but not hot water
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cups cool tap water
1/3 cup or so wheat bran, for dusting 

A heavy, oven safe pot with a lid. Make sure it is safe to high temperatures. An enameled cast iron dutch oven is great. So is a glazed ceramic pot. This is a wet dough, so the bread will take on the shape of the pot you're baking it in. A large, wide pot will produce a flatter loaf. Just make sure it's deep enough for the bread to double or triple inside getting squashed by the lid.)
2 woven kitchen towls (Not terry cloth. An old cotton sheet cut into large squares are great for this.)
A large mixing bowl
A small dish

Directions:

In a small dish, mix together the warm water, sugar, and yeast. (Called "proofing," this tests the viability of the yeast and gets the fermentation started.) Let sit for 10 minutes until the yeast "blooms" and the mixture becomes thick. In a large mixing bowl. mix together the white, rye, and whole wheat flours and the salt. Mix the cool water with the warm yeast mixture and add to the flour mixture. Using your hands, stir until just combined and all the dry flour is absorbed, about 30 seconds. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 12-24 hours (or so - this timing is pretty flexible, and you could leave it longer), until the dough is at least doubled in bulk.

About 3 hours before you're ready to bake, remove bowl  from fridge. Generously flour a cutting board with white flour and dust your hands. Gather the dough and place on the cutting board. Dust with more flour. Gently fold the dough from the outer edges in, on all sides, so that when you flip it over, seem side down, you have a ball shape. Place a cotton woven kitchen towel in the bottom of the bowl.  (If you are using the same bowl, wash it in warm water first, so that the chill from the fridge is gone and the dough will rise faster.) Dust the towel generously with flour, then with wheat bran. (Here's where I'd love readers' suggestions - I'm having a hard time getting the flour to coat the towel where it goes up the sides of the bowl. As the dough rises a second time, it sticks to the towel.) Place the ball of dough on the towel in the bottom of the bowl, and dust sides and top generously with white flour, then wheat bran. Place the second towel loosely over the top and leave the dough in a warm place to rise for a second rise until it's at least doubled in size and comes to room temperature, about 2.5 hours.

After about two hours, adjust the oven rack to the middle and place your pot inside with the lid on. Turn the oven to 450 degrees and let the oven and pot preheat for at least a half hour. (Don't skip this step - the dough will stick to the pot.) After the oven and pot are preheated, carefully take the pot from the oven and remove the lid. Remove the top towel from the dough,  lift the bottom towel and dough out of the bowl, and carefully flip the dough over into the pot. If the dough sticks to the towel, carefully scrape it off with your fingers, being careful not the let the wheat bran get inside the dough. (This will create big, dry pockets in your bread.) Now replace the lid and return the pot to the oven for about 30 minutes. Then remove the lid and bake for another 30 minutes or so until the bread is nicely browned but not burned. Cool the bread on a rack or cutting board. Resist the urge to cut into it while it's hot. It needs a chance to cool and set up before you put the knife to it.

Fire Roasted Peppers

Making your own fire roasted peppers at home is easy, and the flavor and texture is so much better than anything you could get out of a jar or can. It also produces surprisingly low smoke and is fine to do indoors. You can easily adjust the technique depending on your equipment (gas stove, electric oven, or outdoor grill), and it works on any kind of fresh sweet or chili pepper. Once they're cooked, you can throw some salt and pepper on them and serve them warm as a vegetable with grilled meat, or you can preserve them in the fridge in a jar of olive oil, garlic, and herbs, and add them to salads, sandwiches, quesadillas, pizza, or an antipasto plate.

You will need:

Bell or sweet peppers of any color, or fresh chilis like anaheim or poblano

Salt 

Pepper

Kitchen tongs

A large paper bag

Directions: 

Gas Stove Technique: This method produces a brightly colored pepper with a toothsome, slightly al dente texture. You'll especially need this sturdiness if you plan on stuffing your peppers.

Turn a burner on high. Set a whole pepper, or more than one, if they fit, on top of the burner grate, right over the open flame. You want the skin to completely blacken and blister where it directly touches the flame, but the flesh underneath to remain untouched and, ideally, bright in color. Turn the peppers with the tongs until the skin is black all over. This will take up to 10 minutes for large bell peppers, much less for chilis.

When the peppers are charred, remove them from the burner with the tongs, make sure that any embers burn out, and place in the paper bag. Close the bag and let the peppers sit in their own steam for 5 to 10 minutes. This steams off the skin and makes it very easy to remove. Take the peppers from the bag, set them on a cutting board, and scrape the blackened skin off with the side of a knife - it doesn't have to be sharp, a dinner knife works fine.

If you plan on stuffing the peppers, carefully cut a slit down the length of the pepper, but do not remove the stem. Clean out the seeds and ribs without tearing the pepper, and proceed with stuffing. If you plan on jarring the peppers or serving them plain, simply cut out the stem, open them up, and clean out the seeds and ribs. I like to toss mine with salt and pepper and a chopped clove of raw garlic (you don't need much, 1 clove is enough for 3 large bell peppers) and  fresh herbs (thyme, oregano, rosemary, or fennel).  I then pack them tightly in a recycled glass jam jar, fill the jar with olive oil (if you pack the peppers tightly enough, you won't need more than a couple of tablespoons of oil), and keep in the fridge for up to a week or two.

Electric Oven Technique: Without an open flame, you'll have to use your oven's broiler. This will take a bit longer and will produce a pepper that is slightly more cooked, softer in texture,  and less bright in color, but still delicious and ideal for cutting into strips and serving as a side with meat or fish. Adjust the oven rack so that the peppers gets as close to the top element as possible without touching. Preheat the broiler and place the peppers on a sheet pan (or tinfoil, to catch the drips). Continue as with Gas Stove Technique.

Outdoor Grill Technique: Same as Gas Stove Technique above, but with a couple of things to keep in mind. You want open flame if possible, so obviously a gas grill is easier to control. If you are using charcoal, it's best to get as close to the hot coals as possible. Try to mound the coals up right underneath the grate, and place the peppers right over the pile. The farther the peppers are from the heat, and the longer they sit on the grill, the softer the flesh of the peppers will become as the skin blackens. There's nothing wrong with a soft pepper, it's purely a matter of choice and what you plan to use it for.