FLASH IN THE PAN!

The heat is on and I can’t get too excited about slaving over a hot stove. So I go for foods that cook in a flash, foods like boneless chicken breast, fish, shellfish, pork tenderloin, lamb chops or kebabs, ground meat, eggs, cooked ham.

Fast foods--pan-grilled fish steaks, blender soup, quickie olive sauce. Potatoes and beans cook in the same pan.

I add salads and quick-cooking vegetables, ready-to-serve starters and side dishes, fast and flashy sauces and, for dessert, either fresh fruit or store-bought ice cream, cake, pudding.

I couldn't cook without a blender and/or food processor, which make short work of smooth and cool summer soups; grated or sliced veggies for salads; fast-chopped ingredients for  sauces.  A microwave also saves time and, better yet, keeps a cool kitchen. 

Precooked foods save time at meal times. For example, in the summer, I like to keep on hand potatoes, boiled in their skins and well-chilled.  These can become instant potato salad, Spanish potato tortilla, fast fries, or, be slathered with garlic and olive oil for grilling.  Cooked rice, macaroni, green beans, garbanzos and other legumes are equally useful, hot or cold.  When you grill, take advantage of those dying coals to roast peppers, leeks and eggplant to be served, marinated, with the next day's meal. 

Summer meals needn't be served hot, hot.  Cook the food and let it set until folks are ready to dine.  Add sauces, garnishes and side dishes at the last minute.  If food gets cold, don't sweat.

I put together three flash-in-the-pan meals, ready in 30 minutes. My menus are inspired by Mediterranean foods and, especially, by what’s in my garden right now—terrific tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and green and yellow beans.

Menu #1: a starter of chilled cucumber soup, fish steaks with olivada sauce, potatoes, beans and garden tomatoes.

1. Chilled cucumber soup; grilled albacore steaks with olivada sauce; potatoes, beans and sliced garden tomatoes.

2. Tomato-cheese salad, pasta with shrimp and zucchini.

3. Watermelon salad, breaded chicken cutlets with red pepper mayonnaise, cous cous taboulleh, microwave zucchini.

Ready, set, cook! Ingredients for a starter (cucumber-yogurt soup), main (pan-grilled albacore with olive sauce) and sides of beans and potatoes. All ready to serve in 30 minutes.

Menu 1. Cucumber soup, grilled albacore tuna with olive sauce, potatoes, beans and tomatoes.

Bring a pan of water to a boil. (You can save a little time by starting with hot tap water and covering the pan. Add salt once the water boils.) Add 4 medium potatoes (one per person). Cook them, covered, until almost tender, about 18 minutes. Add ½ pound green beans to the pan and cook until they are crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Drain the potatoes and beans and refresh with cold water.

Once the potatoes are cooking, make the cucumber soup. Then start the albacore tuna steaks. While fish cooks, use blender to make the olive sauce.

Serve the cucumber soup as a starter. Peel and slice the potatoes. Serve with the tuna, beans, sliced tomatoes and the olive sauce.

Cool as a cucumber! Chilled soup is garnished with fresh mint.

Chilled Cucumber-Yogurt Soup

Serves 4.

1 large cucumber (12 ounces), peeled
1 ½ cups plain Greek yogurt
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly-ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Mint leaves
½ cup ice water

Cut the cucumber into chunks, saving a few slices for garnish, and place in blender or food processor with the yogurt, garlic, oil, ½ teaspoon salt, pepper, lemon juice and a few mint leaves. Process until smooth. Taste and add more salt, if desired. Stir in ice water.

Serve garnished with thin slices of cucumber and chopped mint.

Slather the olive sauce over tuna, potatoes and beans.

Albacore Tuna with Olive Sauce
Bonito del Norte con Olivada

Have the albacore (bonito) steaks cut at least 1-inch thick. I used three good-sized steaks, weighing more than 2 pounds, because I wanted leftovers for making Niçoise salad for lunch the next day. 

Tuna steaks (4-6 ounces per person)
Salt
Pepper
Thyme
3 tablespoons olive oil

Flash in the pan! Thick steaks of albacore tuna are cooked medium rare in the time it takes to brown them on both sides. Cook them whole and remove skin and bones to serve.

Sprinkle fish steaks with salt, pepper and thyme. Heat oil on high heat in a large, heavy skillet (such as cast iron). Add the steaks and cook until browned on the bottom, about 4 minutes. Turn and cook until medium-rare, about 4 minutes.

(More recipes for albacore tuna here.)

Cooked medium-rare, white albacore tuna stays moist.

Quickie Olive Sauce
Olivada

This sauce, which is somewhat like tapenade, is super quick to make. Slather it on the grilled fish, the potatoes, the beans. (Another version of olivada is here) Wild fennel is blooming near my garden patch, so I’m sprinkling some of the pollen on this sauce. (More about fennel pollen  here ) This sauce needs no additional salt, as the brined olives with anchovy contribute the seasoning. If you wish, thin the sauce with some of the drained olive brine.

By the way, if you’ve never tried anchovy-stuffed olives, you really should get some right now! They are totally addictive. (Here’s a mail-order source in the US .)

1 (350-gram/ 12-ounce) can anchovy-stuffed olives, drained
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
¼ cup flat-leaf parsley
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Fennel pollen (optional)

Put all the ingredients in a blender and process until fairly smooth. Keeps, refrigerated, for up to a week.

Tune in next week for Menu #2. 

 

More of these to come from the garden!

RIBS ON THE GRILL

How do you do ribs? I’ve got two ways to grill spareribs, and I can’t quite decide which I like best. When the whole family was here, I prepared several racks of ribs with an American-style barbecue sauce. This week I did ribs in a classic Spanish adobo marinade.

Ribs and vegetables grilling over coals.

American-style barbecue sauce is tomato-based with a balance of sugar and vinegar. It’s painted on the ribs after they are completely cooked. The sugar in the sauce creates a crusty glaze. I pre-cook the ribs early in the day by simmering them in water with salt, peppercorns, vinegar, sliced onion and celery until they are fork tender.

Benjamin and Daniel tend the grill for a family get-together. Ribs are finished with American-style barbecue sauce.

The Spanish way with ribs starts with a tangy, herby marinade (no sugar). Then the ribs are slow-cooked over coals (or in a wood-fired oven), turning and basting occasionally, until they are tender, about one hour. No sauce is needed.

Adobo marinade for spareribs.

I’m grilling over charcoal made from encina, holm oak, which produces very hot-burning coals. Obviously, grilling times will vary, depending on the size of your pieces of meat and the type of grill you’re using.

I grilled eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onions and tomatoes on the grill and used them to make a wonderful side dish, escalivada (that recipe is here).

Ribs and wings have been marinated before grilling.

Juicy ribs, a grilled potato and escalivada, grilled vegetables with olive oil.

Sliced tomatoes, cukes and a bean salad complete the meal on the grill.

Escalivada contains grilled peppers, onions, eggplant, zucchini and tomato.

My (American-style) Barbecue Sauce for Ribs

Nobody noticed that I used apricot jam instead of brown sugar. In deference to kids' tastes, I left out the dose of cayenne. I don’t even bother to simmer the sauce. Mix and it’s ready to slather on ribs to finish on the grill. They’re done when the sauce is nicely browned, about 10 minutes per side.

This makes enough sauce for 2 racks of ribs.

1 cup ketchup
½ cup apricot jam
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 cloves crushed garlic
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon smoked pimentón (paprika)

Cayenne (optional)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients.

Marinated Grilled Pork Ribs
Costillar de Cerdo Adobado a la Parilla

This recipe makes enough marinade for two racks of ribs, or one rack of ribs and a pound of wings or a whole chicken. 

Herbs for adobo marinade.

1-2 racks of ribs
¼ cup white wine
¼ cup vinegar
½ teaspoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon thyme
½ tablespoon rosemary
½ cup coarsely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon pimentón (paprika), smoked or unsmoked
12 cloves garlic
¼ cup olive oil

Place the ribs in a large pan or tray.

Place remaining ingredients in a blender and process until fairly smooth. You can thin with a little water, if desired.

Spread the marinade on both sides of the ribs. (If you wish, save some of the marinade to use as a spoon-on sauce after the ribs are cooked.) Cover with foil and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours.

Grill racks of ribs slowly over coals or, covered, on indirect heat on a gas grill, turning and basting occasionally until fork, tender.

Nico and a platter of ribs.

THE ALLURE OF PEACHES

It’s the fragrance, the spicy-sweet perfume of ripe peaches, that attracts me to this luscious fruit. Eaten out of hand, the sticky juice dripping from my chin, the peach is my idea of heaven.

Yellow or red, peaches are a summer delight.

I also serve cut-up peaches with raspberries and melon and a spritz of Sherry for a summer macedonia de frutas, a mixed fruit cup. Peach puree is gorgeous for mousse (a recipe is here ) and for ice cream (recipe here).  Peaches are an ideal fruit for pies and tarts.

Peaches originated in China, which is still the world’s largest producer of the fruit. Spain is third in world production, according to information from ICEX, the government agency that promotes Spanish products abroad (see the article about peaches in their Foods & Wines from Spain site. )

Peaches are either “freestone,” meaning the flesh easily pulls away from the pit, or “clingstone,” the flesh tightly adheres to the stone. There are peachy-red varieties, yellow ones and pale, almost white-fleshed types.

While I think of peaches as the zenith of summer fruits, in fact, many are late varieties that don’t mature until the end of September. Such is the famed yellow Calanda peach (Denominación de Origen Melocotón de Calanda) from Aragón in northeastern Spain). While still tiny, the fruit are enclosed in waxed paper bags that protect the peaches from bugs and the elements, allowing them to mature unblemished. They are especially sweet.

Whole peaches poached in a red wine syrup.

The Calanda peaches are marketed fresh and also canned. Famously, they are preserved in red wine syrup.

Red wine gives the peaches a jewel tone.

Peaches in Red Wine Syrup
Melocotones al Vino Tinto

These peaches are skinned, but not pitted. After poaching in the wine syrup, you can cut them up to serve or serve them whole with fork and knife and let guests slice the peaches at the table.

Serves 6.

6 yellow clingstone peaches
¾ - 1 cup sugar
3-4 cups red wine
3-inch cinnamon stick
Strip of lemon zest
Greek yogurt, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, to serve

Submerge the peaches in boiling water for 1 minute. Drain. When cool enough to handle, slip off their skins.

Cook peaches with wine, sugar, cinnamon stick.

Place skinned peaches in a pan with sugar and enough wine to cover them. Add cinnamon stick and lemon zest. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until peaches are tender when pierced with a skewer, about 15 minutes. Remove the peaches with a slotted spoon and place them in a heat-proof jar or bowl.

Raise heat and reduce the wine syrup by half. Pour the syrup over the peaches. Cover the jar or bowl. When cool, place the peaches in the refrigerator.

Serve the peaches, cold, with some of their syrup accompanied by a dollop of Greek yogurt, whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream.

Serve the peaches with thick yogurt, cream or ice cream.