Petit Riz

This was our version of a Thanksgiving meal. My mother doesn’t like the tough meat of turkey, she prefers sockeye salmon, and so we thought of the holiday as more of an occasion to spend an afternoon cooking together. What a gift to have a full day in the middle of the week to indulge in the kitchen.

The result was the kind of meal you might cook to impress four ravenous guests. The dessert takes two to three days to prepare, but it can be made ahead of time and left to rest in the fridge overnight. The salmon can be thrown into a hot oven when the guests arrive as it only takes twenty minutes to cook. The tart can be cooked an hour or two in advance; it is delicious served at room temperature, although it can also be easily reheated. The root vegetables, too, can be roasted two to three hours before serving and returned to the oven with the salmon. They’ll finish caramelizing as the salmon bakes.

We began our afternoon in the kitchen by roasting kabocha, potatoes, carrots, and sweet potatoes in a piping hot oven for an hour, until they were soft in the center and caramelized. We had sprinkled them with sel gris, olive oil and fresh rosemary. The revelation was kabocha – cooked in the oven, it has a delicate, sweet flavor that intensifies along its crisped edges. Its inner flesh was velvet along our tongues.

As we ate our salmon, we spoke about the importance of meat broth to strengthen our bones and immune system. I have memories of my mother making fish stock several times a month when we lived in Australia, when we ate no red meat as a family. Alejandro told us about the meat juice he drank as a child to fortify his bones. Slabs of meat were cooked medium rare and then pressed to extract the juices. These juices were gathered in a small cup and given to the children to drink. I asked what happened to the pressed meat. It was discarded, he said, god knows where.

Sockeye salmon with Akiko’s sauce

Ingredients:

Soy sauce
2-3 lemons
1 small knob ginger
3 spring onions/scallions
Olive oil
2 lb. Sockeye salmon
1 shallot, finely sliced
Salt

Directions:

For the sauce, mix equal parts of soy sauce, lemon juice, grated ginger, and olive oil. Finely chop three scallions and stir with previous ingredients. For a big salmon I usually do two tablespoons of soy sauce, lemon juice, etc.… This sauce is terrific on any kind of fish, red meat, chicken, rice, or even for dipping bread.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Cover the salmon with lemon juice of half a lemon, thin slices of one lemon, the sliced shallot, and a few sprinkles of salt – careful to not over salt as the sauce itself is salty. Lightly drizzle with olive oil. Bake fish for twenty minutes, or until just cooked through. The inside should still be a little red.

Mushroom, spinach and ricotta tart

Ingredients:

3 cups of mushrooms (shiitake is a must)
5 cups of spinach
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
1 shallots
2 tablespoons thyme
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 puff pastry
150 grams of ricotta (or as much as you like)
Salt, pepper
A hard cheese, like gruyère, to grate over the tart

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Clean mushrooms, cut in half or quarters if they’re big, but leave them still in discernable, beautiful pieces. Wash the spinach and set aside.

In a large pan, heat olive oil and quickly sauté the shallots and garlic. Add the mushrooms, sauté for five or so minutes, then add the spinach and cook over medium heat until wilted. Salt and pepper to taste, turn off the heat, and set aside.

Roll out the puff pastry using a little flour if it’s sticking to the rolling pin or surface. Place the pastry on a baking pan and trim the edges until it looks like a rectangle or a square. With a sharp knife, lightly cut a border of about one inch around the tart (don’t cut all the way to the pan), and prick the “inside” (everything by the border) of the tart with a fork. It should be riddled with little fork imprints! Bake in the oven for fifteen minutes. Take it out and let cool a few minutes. The crust will puff up and then quickly deflate when you take it out of the oven. You can also press down the center (not the borders), with the back of a spoon when it’s still hot.

Lather the inside of the tart with ricotta, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with the cooked mushrooms and spinach. Grate a hard cheese over the mushrooms and spinach; just enough to lightly cover (as you would for a bowl of spaghetti).

Bake in the oven for fifteen to twenty minutes, until the sides of the tart are golden and the cheese on top is melted.

Serve warm with a salad. Ours had grapefruit – peeled to avoid the bitter skin – avocado and a light lemon, salt, olive oil vinaigrette.

Flan de Chivilcoy*

Recipe by Alejandro Milberg
* A small town in Buenos Aires Province, where the recipe comes from – courtesy of Hugo DiCroce.

Ingredients:

½ gallon whole milk
3¼ cups (650 gr) granulated sugar plus ¼ to ½ cup for caramel
4 large eggs plus 5 yolks
pinch of salt
vanilla extract

Directions:

Mix milk with 3¼ cups granulated sugar and a pinch of salt. Heat mixture on low, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until reduced by half (this takes about 2 hours). A good way to check is to dip a knife vertically at start and reserve; dip a second knife and compare levels. The milk should barely steam. If heat is higher it will start to turn into “dulce de leche” (darker color), which is not bad either – just a different taste. Let the mixture cool and refrigerate until following day.

Caramelize a tube pan or bowl by either heating granulated sugar in it (do not burn it!) or pouring molten sugar and carefully swirling around until most of the inner surface is covered – use oven mitts!

Put water to boil. Meanwhile, mix eggs and yolks without beating, add to reduced milk, add vanilla essence to taste (½ tsp.), mix carefully and pour through a strainer into the caramelized pan.

Put pan into a larger, deep pan, add boiling water so it reaches as far up the sides of the flan pan as possible. Cover the flan pan with a lid or foil to avoid scorching.

Bake at 400° for 50 to 70 mins., or until a knife inserted in flan comes out “clean”… a few clumps of flan sticking to the knife are OK; you don’t want a film of liquid on the knife (undercooked) but you don’t want to overcook it either, it will turn cakey. Let cool and refrigerate overnight.

Remember to take it out of the fridge an hour before serving. To unmold, warm the bottom of the flan pan under warm water. Jiggle the flan to see that it’s not sticking to the edges. Place a big plate on top of the pan and overturn the flan.

Serve with berries, whipped cream, dulce de leche or all three…

Photos by Geoffroy Bablon