Sorrel tarragon frittata

I went to the Slow Food Miami Lebanese Feast last night, but it was, let's say, problematic, so let's talk about the meal I threw together when I got home instead, OK?

I knew I wanted to use the sorrel complete, but I was concerned that the leaves would cook down and I'd end up with a pan full of stems as I have too many times with other greens. Running it through the food processor with a little olive oil and salt seemed a good plan. I originally planned to just chop things up a bit, but went a little overboard and ended up with a sorrel paste, but I could make that work.

After tasting the sorrel, I gathered a few more ingredients that I thought would go well with it: thinly sliced onion and bell pepper, roughly chopped green olives and a handful of tarragon. I briefly considered making this a pesto-esque pasta sauce, but went with eggs instead.

Once I had the ingredients together, I kept the preparation pretty simple. I sweated the onion and pepper until soft, added the sorrel and olives and cooked out some excess moisture. Once I was happy with a fairly firm texture that wasn't releasing much liquid, I poured it out into a bowl and mixed in a little frozen butter to cool it down rapidly so I could add three beaten eggs, the taragon and a little salt and pepper without starting to cook the eggs.

I left the pan on the heat, hoping to get it hot enough to get a Spanish tortilla style puff out of the eggs, but it didn't work. That's why I'm calling it a frittata instead even though I didn't finish it off in the oven. Maybe it's just an omelet?

Whatever it was, it turned out surprising well given its improvisatory nature. I was afraid the sorrel would be a bit harsh, as some greens can get when you treat them this roughly, but it kept its light citrusy herbal flavor. It blended well with the tarragon and countered the savory egg and mild olive tanginess and gave a pleasantly complex play of understated flavors over the course of each bite.

Not the most visually attractive dish, I'll admit. The red sorrel is at least partially to blame for that, I think. Imagine a spring of parsley on top and I think it's presentable.

The texture was light and buttery, just barely holding together, with a little chew from the onion and peppers and crunch from the olive-bread toast I served it on. Add a minerally dry white wine to cut the richness and it was a lovely late dinner.

Azerbaijani herb omelet

No doubt there's an Azerbaijani name for such a thing, but that's the title on the recipe I found on World Hearth. The cookbook it came from, Please to the Table, has got translations, but that page isn't in the Amazon preview so I can't tell you what that translation might be (or even what language it was translated into. It's a Russian cookbook, but not a Russian recipe.) The cooking method is more Spanish tortilla than omelet, but, hey, close enough.

Ingredients:
2 cups spinach, finely chopped
5 large scallions, finely chopped (I've only got three regular-sized ones)
1 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup dill, finely chopped
3 Tablespoons cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
salt and pepper to taste
6 large eggs, well beaten
3 Tablespoons olive oil

When herbs are getting finely chopped I use the stems too, but that's just me.

Of more general concern is the question of when a recipe says "2 cups spinach, finely chopped" does it mean to finely chop two cups of spinach leaves or to finely chop enough spinach to make two cups? Finely chopping cuts the volume in half, more or less. See?
before:





after:
Whoops, I should have scraped down the bowl; you can't really see. Just trust me on this one.

When I write recipes, I usually mean the latter and it bugs me that what I write literally means the former but the latter seems more precise as to the amount that ends up in the dish.

Since I wasn't sure what the creator of this recipe (presumably Anya von Bremzen and John Welchman, the authors of the cookbook) meant, and since I had started with the amounts listed and ended up with half that, I decided to mix three eggs into the herb mixture to see what that got me.

What it got me was a bowl of barely moistened herbs. I doubted that was right so I added the other three eggs and got something more reasonable. That means the authors meant what they wrote: "2 cups spinach, finely chopped". OK, good to know.

Once everything (bar the olive oil) is mixed the instructions are to heat the oil over medium heat in a 10-inch pan, pour in the egg mixture, cook for 5 minutes to let the eggs start to set, cover and turn heat to low and cook for 15 minutes more.

That's where my second problem presented itself. The large burner on my stove doesn't really do medium. Not very well anyway. When you turn it on it only does high and barely-warm with nothing in between. If I leave it on high for a while, temperatures in between slowly become available, I think, or possibly that's just heat stored in the pan. Anyway, getting a pan over medium heat is tough, particularly when the only suitable 10-inch pan I've got is cast iron. I gave it my best shot, but the eggs set right away so I skipped the first 5 minutes, covered the pan and checked progress at 5 minute intervals.

In fact it did take the full 15 minutes for the omelet to set, after which it was time for the next step: slicing it into 8 pieces while still in the pan over the heat and then flipping each piece. That sounds like it would be problem number three for this recipe, but it actually was pretty easy. The trick was to pull one slice out of the pan and set it aside. That leaves room to flip another slice and slide it over to make space to flip the next one. Once everything was flipped, it was 5 more minutes over the heat (which seemed pretty well medium at this point) and then out to a serving dish.

Now let's see how it tastes...
It's mostly savory egg, with some very nice flavor from the browned edges, with aromatic parsley and dill. I'm not getting a lot of spinach, cilantro or walnut. The egg is a bit, but not badly overdone, chewy but not rubbery. There's a bit of crunch from the nuts (and the stems). Nothing spectacular, but nice enough, if you like parsley and dill anyway. It could use some contrast; at least a bit of acid, but I think I'd like it in a sandwich with a mayonnaise with some vinegar in. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow as I've already had three slices and I want to save the rest. I wonder how it's served traditionally.

CSA week seven - Black spaote banana meringue cookies

I had no reason to think this was going to work. My searching didn't turn up any recipes that combined whipped egg whites and fruit pulp which is usually a pretty good indication that it's not a good idea. But I had everything I needed lying around so I thought I'd give it a try just to see what would happen.

Ingredients:
pulp from several small black sapotes
1 banana, frozen and defrosted
1-3 Tablespoons sugar depending on how sweet your fruit is
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 Tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour
some agave nectar
2/3 cup egg whites

0. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

1. Blend the fruit. Add the sugar and vanilla and blend some more. Stir in the flour.

2. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the fruit mixture to lighten. Fold in the second third. Fold in the third third. Check for sweetness. Fold in agave nectar until the flavors pop.

3. Using a coffee or small ice cream scoop, dispense dollops of batter onto cookie sheets prepared using your most extreme non-stick procedure. Bake for 40 minutes, turning halfway through. Take them out, try one, discover it's raw in the center and put them back in for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

For my second batch I found 25 minutes at 350 degrees worked well, but the hour of sitting around deflated the cookies which may have had some effect so use your best judgement.


I call these cookies, but only because I can't think of a better word for them. They've got the soft squishy/chewy texture of angel's food cake. Actually many are partially pre-squished due to troubles I had getting them off the parchment paper I baked them on.

Fresh out of the oven they were a little crisp around the edges, but that fades. There's still a little crystal-crunch from the sugar which I actually like, but you may want to avoid by using confectioner's sugar.

Despite having substantially more sapote than banana, the flavor is predominantly caramelized banana. The sapote rounds it out, but it could be mistaken for a hint of chocolate. Pretty tasty. Maybe it could use a little acid to brighten it up--a lemon sugar glaze maybe?

CSA week five - Bacalhau a Mineira

Coming off of two relatively dull posts and some extra time away from the blog, I knew I had to come back from my trip with an extra interesting post. That's a particular challenge given the cabbage and plum tomatoes I had to work with. Not the most congenial ingredients for something impressive.

But, I think what I've got here just might fit the bill. Bacalhau a Mineira is a salt cod dish from the Minas Gerais state of Brazil. It's one of those dishes where every village has its own variation and the only proper one is the way your mother made it. I found a recipe in English on recipehound.com that was taken from the Book of Latin American Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, but when I looked for other versions, I had to Babel-fish translate them from Portuguese. I may not be getting everything quite right, but at least I know they're authentic.

Almost every version I found, with the exception of Ms. Ortiz's oddly, was a casserole layered with pre-cooked vegetables, heavy on the potatoes. So, I started with a pot of salted water where I boiled two thickly sliced medium red potatoes until just tender. I removed those and then blanched three plum tomatoes to make them easier to peel. Removed them, lowered the heat and coddled two eggs.

Meanwhile, in a medium cast iron pan, I sautéed sliced onion, garlic and red and green peppers until softened. Then I added about three quarters of a pound of sliced cabbage which I sautéed over rather high heat until nicely wilted. To that I added the tomatoes, peeled and chopped, and a half cup of white wine. I reduced the heat, cooked until the tomatoes started to fall apart and then removed all of that to a bowl, leaving the accumulated juices in the pan.

Into those juices went three quarters of a pound of salt cod that I had soaked overnight in a few changes of water to desalinify (so why I didn't just use fresh cod, I dunno). I cooked the cod until it started getting fragrant and flaky and then removed it to another bowl.

Now it was time to start building the casserole. Since the pan was oven safe I just used it instead of a baking dish. First a layer of the cabbage mixture, then some potato slices, then some cod, sprinkled with parsley, green and black olives and, god help us all, raisins. I repeated that two more times, each layer well-lubricated with olive oil.

On top I nestled in my halved beautifully mollet-cooked and then topped with shredded queijo Minas. At least that's what the recipe called for. I asked for a substitute at Whole Foods, but the cheese expert (from Brazil fortunately enough) got called away and a couple yahoos attempted to help. I ended up with a queso blanco that was a) a bit too salty and b) didn't melt the way queijo Minas is supposed to. Ah well.

But I only learned that latter part after 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

And here's the result:


That pile really ought to be at least partially held together with melted cheese. One recipe I saw shredded the potatoes and mixed it and shredded cheese in with the other ingredients. Maybe I should have done that.


Hmm...this is an interesting combination of flavors. I wouldn't have thought raisins and cod would work, but they do. It's not really melding though. It's a lot of individual elements that aren't actively clashing, but not building to anything either. Maybe the cheese is supposed to hold it together more than just physically. Now that it's cooled a bit, the cabbage, potato and cod flavors are working well together, the earthy melange punctuated by the bright saltiness of the olives emphasizing the cod and raisins bringing out the cabbage's sweetness. The tomatoes don't do much, but these aren't the world's most flavorful tomatoes. Still, I think I'm starting to get how it's supposed to work and I think I can say I actually like this now. Good thing since I've got about five meal's worth left over.

Greek zucchini pie

I had a few different ideas of what to do with the zucchini this time around. My first choice was a couscous dish, but I decided to put it off until I can get hold of some merguez sausage (which means probably no time soon). This, instead, is a cross between these zucchini galettes, originally from Bon Appétit magazine, and a more traditional Greek kolokithopita. Or maybe it's just a quiche; I dunno.

Ingredients:
crust:
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut in chunks
2-4 Tablespoons cold water

filling:
1 large zucchini and 1 small summer squash, grated
1 small onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic
3 1/2 ounces well-flavored feta, crumbled
1/3 cup Greek yogurt [I substituted the sour cream I had on hand, but yogurt would be better.]
3 eggs
1 small handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
a little bit of fresh mint leaves, chopped
a little bit of fresh dill, chopped [I was out, but it's a traditional compliment to the other flavors in this dish.]
salt
pepper
pecorino romano or kefalotiri cheese if you can get it

0. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

1. For the crust, mix the flour and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse several times until the butter is incorporated and the mixture looks a little coarse. Add the water Tablespoon by Tablespoon, pulsing in between, until the dough just barely comes together. Remove the dough to a work surface, work it into a ball, split in half, flatten each piece into a disc, wrap in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for a half hour.

2. Meanwhile, grate the zucchini and squash (or whatever you've got), mix with 1/4 teaspoon salt, put in a colander and let sit for a half hour. Afterward, squeeze out most of the moisture.

3. Heat olive oil and/or butter over medium-high heat in a medium pan. Add the onion and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and slightly browned. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add the zucchini and cook five minutes more until the zucchini is softened and slightly browned. Remove from heat.

4. Mix feta, yogurt and eggs in a large bowl. Add the zucchini mixture and the herbs. Add salt and pepper to taste.

5. Remove one of the dough discs from the refrigerator and roll out to about 10-inches in diameter. Place it into a 9-inch pie pan and adjust it so it's lining the pan properly. Pour in the filling and grate the romano cheese over top. I folded the excess dough over the top for a bit of the galette feel. You could top the pie with the other half of the dough instead if you'd like. I ended up saving it for another recipe.

6. Bake the pie at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees and bake for 25 minutes more until the filling is set and browned and the crust is golden. Cool at least five minutes before serving.


The pie filling is fluffy and the crust light and crisp so no faulting it on texture, but I'm disappointed in the lack of a strong zucchini flavor. I would have thought the purging and pan frying would have intensified it, but no. The pie's flavor is mostly just savory eggs, feta tang and fresh herbs. Maybe the zucchini flavors blended with the herbal notes? I think it's in there somewhere. Well, I'm not being judged on my use of the ingredient so it doesn't really matter. What's important is that the results are pretty tasty any which way.

Avocado deviled eggs

I just searched on Google and found that I was about the billionth person to come up with this idea, but I swear it just occurred to me on its own. Most of the recipes I found kind of miss the point by just adding the avocado to a standard deviled egg formula when it can easily replace the mayonnaise entirely. Maybe this is the one case where watery Florida avocados are actually superior and Hasses can't sub in so well? It might be interesting to compare and contrast.

I should probably back up here and defend the idea of deviled eggs in general. I've got to admit that I'd be skeptical too if I, at the prompting at a post on TheKitchn and, yes, a desire to try the steamer function on my new rice cooker, had my first homemade deviled egg last week. I was amazed at how different it was from the buffet table atrocities I've encountered before.

The key, I think, is in properly cooking the egg. I used my steamer this time, but I usually coddle them--poaching in the shell, really--by carefully adjusting the temperature so water stays just under a boil. That keeps the whites tender. The second important aspect is pulling the eggs from the heat a few minutes early to get them at the mollet stage with the whites just firm and the yolks moist and maybe a little wet in the center. Eggs done this way are great as is, but work really well in deviled eggs too.

Beyond the properly prepared egg, there's the choice of what to mix into the yolk. There are as many variations here as there are in egg salad recipes. Mostly the same variations, actually, now that I think of it. The basic version is to mix with each yolk: a Tablespoon of mayonnaise, a teaspoon of mustard, a little salt, a little pepper and a touch of something acid. Add a sprinkle of paprika on top to justify calling it deviled. This is obviously rich, but it's also just bursting with flavor if it's well seasoned and not too thinned out with mayo.



As you've probably figured out by now, my questionably innovative innovation here is to leave out the mayo and instead use a Tablespoon of avocado. How well this works depends on the moisture content of your yolks and your avocado so some adjustments may be necessary. Unless it's a particularly old avocado, it probably won't want to completely mix in with the other ingredients, but, for me, the little bits of recalcitrant avocado add some textural interest. But I like my mashed potatoes lumpy, so take that for what it's worth. Beyond that, the texture is indistinguishable from using mayonnaise, just beautifully luscious and creamy. As for the flavor, mild Florida avocado is hard to spot, but I think there's a little something there, and, of course, the greenish tinge is obvious.

I suppose there's a mild health benefit to using, but a Tablespoon of mayonnaise more or less is hardly a big deal. I suppose I'm just enthusiastic about deviled eggs right now and happy to have found another avocado recipe that Florida avocados don't screw up.

Bacon and egg risotto

This is a recipe from the Ojai Valley Inn courtesy of the Los Angeles Times' Culinary SOS column. Risotto is pretty flexible so just moving the flavors from Italian to American isn't all that interesting, but instead of dumping a bunch of cheese in at the end, the recipe called for a raw egg yolk to be mixed into each serving at the table and that seemed worth a try.

I wanted to add some vegetation to the dish so I left out the minor amount of chives and substituted in a good bit of finely chopped broccolini. No doubt that ruined the balance of flavors Jaime West, the original chef, was looking for, but I think it still turned out fine.

Ingredients:
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 tablespoon butter
3/4 cups arborio rice
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
3 strips bacon, preferably apple-wood-smoked, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1/8 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/8 cup chopped chives [or a full cup of broccolini]
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 egg yolks

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low to keep the broth warm.

2. Meanwhile, in a 4-quart heavy pot over medium heat, cook the onion in the butter until softened, stirring often, about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice, garlic and bacon and cook, stirring frequently, until the bacon begins to brown, about 3 minutes.

3. Stir in one-half cup warm broth and continue to cook the rice at a simmer until the broth is absorbed, stirring frequently. Continue to add the broth, one-half cup at a time, stirring constantly until each addition is absorbed before adding the next, until the rice is creamy-looking but still slightly chewy, 18 to 20 minutes (you should have leftover broth). [I added the broccolini at around 10 minutes and ended up using the full three cups of broth and 25 minutes of cooking time.

4. Stir in the cheese and chives, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

5. Immediately divide the risotto between 2 warmed plates, and make an indentation in each mound of risotto for a yolk. Place a yolk in the center of each mound and serve immediately.



The egg flavor comes through clearly in the sauce so there's no mistaking this for a traditional risotto. It's rich and smokey with a little bit of bitterness from the broccolini. I think the flavors would be rather straightforward and boring without it though. I was more attentive to my stirring than usual and I think it paid off in rice that was firm but not chalky and a thick creamy sauce. I cut my bacon larger than the recipe called for so I had a little problem with chewing limp rubbery bacon pieces, but crisp really isn't an option in a risotto. Kind of misses the point of bacon, though; There are plenty of other ways of adding smoky flavor. I wonder if there's some way to make it work with a smoked ham hock instead.

Anyway, I did like it; Not as much as a traditional risotto with prosciutto and cheese instead of bacon and eggs, but I did like it well enough.

CSA week 18 - Quinoa-crusted quiche

It's been a while since I've made a quiche. I spent some time last Fall experimenting with crumb crusts trying to come up with something with a good texture that didn't require most of a stick of butter to make. I finally settled on using cracker crumbs mixed with finely grated cheese and blind baked like a pie crust.

So when I finished making beet-top, spring-onion, grape-tomato pizza last night with plenty of each left over (not to mention half a ball of fresh mozzarella), and thought of quiche as a way to use up some more, I wanted to do something a bit different with the crust.

Frequent commenter Kat has made polenta crusts that she's talked about on her blog so I thought I'd try quinoa to see how that might work.

I started by cooking up a half cup of quinoa, mixing it with a quarter cup of panko bread crumbs, salt and a spice blend and letting it cool. Once it was workable, I pressed it into a 9-inch pie pan. It was a little crumblier than I wanted, although it was sticking together, so I decided to pre-bake it. I grated a good layer of pecorino toscano over top before putting it into a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. The results were interesting. The cheese melted to form a sort of shellac over the quinoa. I think mixing it in would have worked well, but this protective coating should keep the crust intact.

Meanwhile, for the filling, I fried up a couple thick slices of bacon until crisp, set those aside and sautéed a handful each of beet- and spring onion-tops along with a good bit of parsley. Once those were just about done I added a handful of grape tomatoes to cook just a little bit. I just quartered the tomatoes instead of slicing them as I wanted to have them be distinct chunks in the quiche and not just a general tomatoey flavor thinning out the custard. And finally, I chopped up a thick slice of mozzarella into half-inch cubes, crumbled the bacon and mixed it all together for the final filling.

I decided to experiment with the custard a bit too as I had half a cup of leftover Greek yogurt I wanted to use. I mixed that with a cup of milk, a quarter cup or so of grated cheddar cheese and four eggs for the custard. That turned out to be just a little too much so I wasn't able to get the pan into the oven without spillage, but I didn't lose a whole lot.

I baked it at 375 degrees for 45 minutes and then ate leftover pizza while it cooled because the whole thing took a lot longer than I expected and was getting really hungry.

After 15 minutes of cooking, here it is.



Near the center, quiche and quinoa stayed separate and the quinoa stayed crumbly so it's not much of a crust there. But closer to the edges, and particularly up on the sides, the custard soaked down. It's delicate, but it holds together and I think it'll be firmer once it's cold. The flavors blend nicely too. The soaking in means there's less custard on top so the filling ratio is higher than I was hoping for and it's hard to judge whether the yogurt has any real influence on the flavor. So I'm inconclusive on that part of the experiment. I was worried about the random mix of cheeses, but they're all mild. The bacon smooths over any faults and the quinoa matches well with the eggs and smokiness so, even if there are faults in some specific areas, I'm going to call this overall a success.

CSA week four - Radish tortilla española

Now here's something a little more original than the dishes I've been posting about recently.

I've been considering what to do with all those radishes and reading up on roasted radish recipes. One webpage said that when roasted radishes lost their bite and became more like little potatoes. That matched my recollections from cooking radishes last year and I starting thinking about how I could use radishes if I treated them like potatoes. I can't reconstruct my thought processes but I somehow had the notion that they'd go well with eggs so I thought I'd try substituting them into tortilla española. My Miami readers already know what that is, but for Kat, my mom and whoever else is out there, it's basically a thick omelet layered with sliced potatoes that's common in tapas bars all around Spain. Wikipedia has a pretty good description if you want more details.

There are lots of regional variations (none including radishes as far as I can see) that vary the thickness and what other ingredients you might put in. Some include spinach so I thought I could include the radish tops. Onions, garlic and peppers are common so I added those too.

Here's my mise en place. I thickly sliced all of the radishes minus a few I already noshed on. Half the radish tops had yellowed to unusability at this point but I think I've got a good amount left. That's about a quarter of a large onion, one large clove of garlic and one large Serrano pepper, seeded, as I'm out of bell pepper.

The first step was to fry up the radishes in copious olive oil. I wanted them soft, not browned so I kept the temperature to medium and salted them. When they got most of the way there I added the onion, garlic and pepper and kept cooking until the onion had just a bit of bite left. Then I added the radish tops, stirred them in until they wilted and removed everything to a bowl to cool down. I wanted to keep as much of the oil in the pan as possible so I drained them in a strainer over the pan before they went into the bowl.

The radishes at this point have lost almost all of their bite, as predicted, and taste somewhere in the region of potatoes and turnips. It's still recognizably radish but only if you had the idea of the possibility already in mind. The texture is like a fried waxy potato: soft, a little chewy. I'm surprised there are almost no fried radish recipes other than daikon cakes as they're really quite good even if they've have lost some element of their essential radishness.

As the mixture cooled I salted and peppered to taste and added some pimenton and fresh thyme, both good Spanish seasonings. I needed the mix cool so it wouldn't start cooking the eggs prematurely. To get the layered effect the fillings are mixed into the eggs before they go into the pan and there needs to be enough eggs so each piece is nicely coated and floating separately. I figured four eggs (plus a couple Tablespoons of water) should be sufficient. That's not a lot for a pan the size I'm using so my tortilla is going to be on the thin side as these things go.

Most recipes don't go into much detail on technique at this point, but it's a bit complicated to get things to work out right. The goal is a fluffy texture, cooked all of the way through and browned on both sides. That means starting with the temperature way up high to puff up the eggs and keep it from sticking, turning the heat down to let the inside firm up before the outside burns and turning it back up to brown the outside.

Then comes the flip. In Spain you can buy special plates just for this, but I managed with what I've got on hand and only burnt myself a little. The technique is to put the plate on top of the pan, somehow hold them together as you flip it over rotating the top away so if any hot oil comes out it won't come flying towards you, put the plate down, lift the pan up and put it back on the heat and then slide the flipped tortilla back in for its final browning. It turns out that putting the plate down is the tricky part, at least when you don't realize you'll be needing to do it beforehand. Oh, and clearly, cast iron isn't the best choice for all of this. My non-stick paella pan with a high curved rim and handles on both sides is nearly an ideal choice, particularly with the big oval dinner plates I've got that fit over it nicely. If only the handles were a bit more insulated.

It only took a few moments to brown the other side and the tortilla slid easily out onto my cutting board. This dish is best served warm or cold, not hot so I let it sit for a little while before serving a wedge it garnished with green olives and accompanied with the traditional olive-oil-dressed tomato salad.

Maybe I haven't had a really good tortilla española, but I think radishes are a distinct improvement on potatoes in this dish, particularly when served cold. They retain a pleasant texture where potatoes get mealy and their flavor both adds character most potatoes don't have and blends very well with the egg. Even if you didn't want to go to the minor trouble (and risk of injury) of a tortilla española, fried radishes would make a fine filling for an American-style omelet. I'm rather puzzled that nobody (at least nobody on the Web) seems to know this. Maybe it's just me? Could somebody please try this and confirm it's not just me? If it is, I apologize for wasting your radishes.

In search of a better quiche crust - part five

Once more into the laboratory. My last attempt at a crumb crust was bread crumbs mixed with cheese and blinded. This time I'm trying cracker crumbs instead. I've tried crackers previously with butter but the results weren't great and it added a lot of fat with no real benefit.

This time I'm trying a different, more appropriate I'm hoping, type of cracker, mixing it with just one Tablespoon of butter along with a half cup of grated cheese to see how that goes.

The particular crackers I choose are Finn crisps. Mild in flavor, not covered with any sort of flavoring dust, crisp and not too fibrous. I ran some through my spice grinder but they turned to dust so I ground the rest with a mortar and pestle to get some texture.

For the cheese, I used a cream havarti: a good melter without an overwhelming character so it should match well with whatever vegetables I dig out of the refrigerator. One problem I had last time was distributing the long strands of grated cheese. This time I made certain to always keep the shortest dimension of the piece of cheese perpendicular to the direction I was grating in. It's a pain in the butt and against every instinct, but I was rewarded with inch long fine shreds that mixed easily and uniformly with the cracker crumbs.

After 10 minutes at 350 degrees it's difficult to see much difference but a close inspection reveals areas where the cheese melted into the crumbs and bubbled up. The bubbles are coated with cracker dust so they're well camouflaged. It looks promising, but then so did the breadcrumb crust and that turned out rather oddly. I grated a bit of Parmesan over the crust as extra waterproofing before filling the crust.

For the filling, I sautéed some broccolini along with onions and peppers. Getting them good and browned as that really brings out broccolini's flavor. When they were ready I added a handful of chopped tomato, some ham and deglazed the pan with an Argentinean torrontés, whatever the heck that is. It has a tart flavor that I think goes well with the broccolini.

I decided to wing it on the custard as I think I've made enough to have the hang of them. I used four eggs, a cup of milk and a half cup of sour cream. Should be interesting.

Then into the over for 22 minutes at 350 degrees before I realized that it was supposed to be at 375. I checked it after a half hour and a knife in the center comes out clean so I guess it's done despite that. Well, a little on the underdone side as it turns out, but since I'm going to be freezing and reheating most of it, that's for the best.

Here's the bottom. You can see that this time the crust remained a separate layer. It isn't crisp, but it holds together and is firm to the bite. The flavor of the crackers comes through, though, distinct from the quiche proper, and a lovely counterpoint to the other flavors. I think I can call this a success; this is a proper crust. Not difficult at all and relatively low fat with the addition of only one Tablespoon of butter and a quarter cup of extra cheese that wasn't going to go into the quiche anyway.

The quiche itself itself is quite good: smooth, creamy and flavorful. the sour cream was fresh so there's not a whole lot of sour going on, but I think it helped out the texture nicely. There are the occasional pockets where the sour cream wasn't mixed in entirely that add another element of flavor to the dish. The chewiness of the ham is a nice contrast to the other textures and its smokey flavor goes particularly well with the lightly charred broccolini. Overall, it's one darn fine quiche.