FAST FOOD FOR SUMMER, MENU 2

Whether you’re busy with a summer project, working on a sun-tan, still enjoying vacation leisure or, groan, getting ready for a new school year (not in Spain, where the school term doesn’t begin until mid-September), August is no time for spending long hours in the kitchen.

I’m touting fast foods for summer, with menus that are a “flash in the pan.” See last week’s posting for tips and Menu #1. Here’s Menu #2, ready in 30 minutes.

Ready in a flash! Tomato-cheese salad and pasta with sizzling shrimp, garlic and chile. Someone please pour the cook a glass of chilled rosado.

Menu 2 (30-minutes)

Tomato-Goat Cheese Salad
Pasta with Sizzling Garlic Shrimp and Zucchini

Ingredients for salad starter and main of pasta with shrimp and zucchini.

This main dish is inspired by a favorite Spanish tapa—gambas al ajillo (called gambas al pil pil in Andalusia), shrimp sizzled with garlic, served in tiny cazuelitas with chunks of bread for sopping up the delicious garlicky oil. It’s absolutely only a tapa or, at most, a starter. But, spoon those sizzling shrimp over pasta and they make a terrific main.

I bought a bag of multi-colored cherry tomatoes at the market, and combined them with fresh goat cheese for a salad-starter. I don’t like vinegar with fresh tomatoes, so there’s no need to make a dressing. Just drizzle the tomatoes and cheese with extra virgin olive oil and plenty of salt. Finish it with chopped fresh basil, chopped mint or parsley.

Tomato-Goat Cheese Salad
Ensalada de Tomate y Queso de Cabra

Cubes of fresh goat cheese, cherry tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil. Pretty simple.

Queso fresco de cabra is a fresh, mild goat’s cheese. It is soft, not creamy, firm enough that it can be cut in dice.  If not available, feta or mozzarella could be substituted.

Serves 4.

1 cup vari-colored cherry and grape tomatoes
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
½ cup diced queso fresco de cabra
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Chopped fresh basil
Salad greens to serve

Quarter the tomatoes and place in a bowl. Add onion, goat cheese, salt and pepper and olive oil. Immediately before serving, stir in chopped basil. Serve on salad greens.

Pasta with Sizzling Garlic Shrimp and Zucchini
Pasta con Gambas al Ajillo y Calabacín

This pasta, called fideuá, has pinhole through it.

This qualifies as a 30-minute meal only if you start with peeled shrimp, fresh or frozen. (I peeled a heap of shrimp early in the day, while sitting in an air-conditioned room watching the afternoon news.)

I’ve used a cute pasta called fideuá, short curls with pinholes. You could use spaghetti or linguine cut into short lengths. Once you’ve got the water boiling for pasta, add some vegetables, such as diced zucchini, to cook with it.

Use tiny bird chiles whole or slice larger red chile crosswise. Or just use red pepper flakes.

Serves 4

1 tablespoon salt
2 ½ cups dry pasta (such as fideuá or spaghetti broken into short pieces)
1 ½ cups diced zucchini

For the garlic shrimp:
1/3 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic, sliced crosswise
Dry red chiles or red pepper flakes
¾ pound peeled medium shrimp
¼ cup diced serrano ham (optional)
½ teaspoon pimentón (paprika), smoked or regular
¼ cup white wine
¼ cup pasta water

Grated lemon zest
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Add the salt to a pot of water and bring to a boil. Add the pasta. Cook until it is nearly tender, 4-5 minutes. Add the diced zucchini and cook 1 minute longer. Drain, saving ¼ cup of the hot pasta water.

While pasta is cooking, heat the oil in a skillet. Add the sliced garlic and cook until garlic just begins to turn golden. Do not let it brown.

Add the chile, shrimp and ham, if using. Stir-fry the shrimp on high heat until they are just pink and curled, about 3 minutes. Skim out the shrimp and reserve them.

Remove skillet from the heat. Stir in the pimentón. Add the wine and return to cook 1 minute. Add the pasta water. Bring to a boil. Return the shrimp to the skillet and remove from the heat.

Serve the pasta and zucchini with the shrimp and garlic juices spooned over them. Grate lemon zest on top. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

The sauce comes together from the garlicky cooking oil, a little white wine and some of the hot pasta cooking water.

Next week, Menu 3.

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.