FoodNerd!

I keep reading about matsutake and how magical and delicious they are, but I’d never even seen one before last Saturday [really more like 3 weeks ago, I’m a little behind, sorry], when I found some wrapped tidily in plastic at Kotobukiya in the Porter Exchange. Each pack of 2 mushrooms was at least $7, and I did waver in an attempt to be fiscally responsible, but I came home with two adorable little brown mushrooms.
Having no clue what to do with them, but operating on the assumption that simplest would be best, so as to clearly showcase the flavor of the shroom, I did what any cook would do: I Googled. About.com had a very simple matsutake rice recipe, which seemed perfect. And it was. The aroma & flavor of the mushroom goes all through the rice, extending and amplifying itself. It’s quite lovely: it tastes a bit like a woodland floor smells, and it’s strongly savory in the most delicate way. (Of course, like truffles, these mushrooms aren’t necessarily worth the price, but setting filthy lucre aside, they’re wonderful.) Given what I read, the forest floor echo seems about right for the “pine mushroom” (they really do smell a bit like pine needles when they’re raw), and a hot dish of piny earthy rice was exactly what I needed on this blustery autumn day. Let’s hear it for seasonality.

Most recipes for yakitori I’ve tried didn’t taste anything like the glorious stuff I’ve had in izakaya in Japan and in one fabulous, lamented Brookline restaurant (how we miss you, Kiyoshi-san, o drunken master of the charcoal grill). But I happened on one here, which I’ve stripped down to its simplest to great effect. The vinegar is the key. You can make this for a crowd pretty easily if you’ve got a big enough grill. I slice the meat before serving, so it’s easier to nibble.

pack of boneless chicken thighs
4 tablespoons soy sauce
4 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar
Mix soy, vinegar & sugar in a marinating dish. You want to stir & stir, b/c it will stay gritty a long time – you could probably also heat it to speed up the melt. Marinate thighs about an hour, or less/more if you’re busy. Grill them — you’ll get a bit of char on the outside, but meat will stay moist & yummy because of the salt & sugar.

What with the general insanity in my world lately, I haven’t gotten around to frying up those green tomatoes. And this morning I looked outside, where I’ve been storing them, and found them frozen solid. Oops. So I needed a way to cook a lot of them fast — The Gift of Southern Cooking to the rescue, with a scalloped green tomato recipe. Slightly adapted by me because I love Lawry’s seasoned salt on cooked tomatoes. Tangy, savory, and warming. Mine was very pretty, with mostly green tomatoes with a few red ones and nut-brown cubes of whole wheat toast making a nice contrast.
10 or 12 green tomatoes (if you have a few reds too, that’s ok)
small onion
big clove garlic
1 tsp sugar
1 generous tsp Lawry’s seasoned salt
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp or dash ground nutmeg
3 slices bread
few tablespoons butter
Melt butter, cut bread into 1/2″ cubes, mix together and toast in oven 8-12 min at 375F. Cut onions & tomatoes into 1/2″ cubes, mince garlic, and toss in a bowl with sugar, salt, thyme, pepper & nutmeg. Mix in the toasted bread. Butter a nonreactive baking dish (I used a big glass lasagne pan that i’d already used to toast the bread) and dump veg/bread mix in. Spread flat, cover with parchment paper, and bake 40 minutes or till tender at 375F. Take paper off, bake 10 minutes more to crisp up top. Serve hot. You could probably use foil instead of paper — it called for both but i was too lazy, and the paper worked fine alone.

The always-fabulous K had us over to her place this weekend, and whipped up a terrific, blindingly fast pantry dinner: saute garlic & chili paste in oil, add shredded kale to wilt, then put over pasta and douse the works in vietnamese fish sauce. Add some grilled meat or whatever if you want protein. Delicious! You can add fresh lime, but i prefer the saltiness of the fish sauce on its own.

I suppose it actually would be nice if I gave the recipe for my soup, even if it didn’t really help.
1 buttercup squash, cut in quarters & seeds/strings removed
madras curry powder
spicy paprika or cayenne
black pepper
1 bouillon cube (I used a mushroom flavored Italian one)
1/2 onion, diced
clove garlic, minced
few tbsp heavy cream
1/2 to 1 cup water
1/2 to 1 cup milk, fat level irrelevant
Wrap squash quarters in saran wrap and microwave until mushy & tender — start w/ 5 minutes; mine took about 10. Saute onion & garlic in a bit of olive oil & a dash of salt in your saucepan until softening and just starting to color. Add a bit of water and the bouillon cube. Scrape the cooked squash from its skin & add to pot. Add curry powder & spicy paprika to taste. Add cream, milk & water until the soup is the consistency & richness you desire — you may want to stop & puree the soup before you finish up adding extra liquids, so as to be sure not to misjudge consistency. Add a bit of fresh ground black pepper, adjust seasonings as needed.
I ate mine with a crumbled slice of wheat toast and some stinky old cheddar crumbled into it.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to make Renee’s boozy potatoes (actually, Eric Gower’s boozy potatoes) ever since she posted her porn-rific pictures of them. Finally got the opportunity, but sadly I didn’t really have enough sake left in the bottle to do them justice. Even in this appallingly under-boozed state, and with a bit of mirin added as a Plan B, these taters were fabulously yummy! Whew! I am so running out to buy a new bottle of sake right away so I can make more.
I served them with some chive-flavored salmon cakes made from the new pink salmon in a pouch, which is quite nice and according to Cook’s Illustrated is more cost effective than canned because there is no water weight. The accompanying wasabi mayonnaise is just a good thing no matter what you eat it with. Mmmm, wasaaaabi… mayonnaiiiiise….

So when it gets damn cold all of a sudden, and your tomatoes not only no longer ripen on the vine but seem to be practically frozen, you gotta figure out what to do with a big-ass pile of green tomatoes.
I set the nicest ones aside to slice & fry in breadcrumbs (yum), and used the gnarliest ones to make green tomato relish. I got the recipe from (again) the old edition of The Joy of Cooking, but I recently noticed it bears a strong resemblance to the chowchow recipe in the fabulous The Gift of Southern Cooking. It’s a sweet-sour tangy relish that goes well on ham sandwiches, with roasts, and with cheese & crackers.

I had a big colander very full of tomatoes, and they made two batches once sliced. For each batch, I used:
potfull of thinly sliced green tomatoes
1/2 lb brown sugar
1/2 quart cider vinegar
1 onion
1/2 red pepper
1/2 green pepper
roughly 5 cloves garlic
1 tsp whole cloves
1 stick cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp celery seed
3 tsp ground dry mustard
kosher salt
Take the thinly sliced tomatoes and sprinkle with a bunch of kosher salt and let sit in the fridge overnight. My first batch I skipped this step, being lazy, and it came out much too watery and I had to boil it to death to reduce it. It tastes better if you salt them first, so suck it up and do it. Drain them and rinse and drain again.
Put tomatoes in a pot with onion & peppers, both finely diced, and garlic, minced. Add the vinegar, sugar, cinnamon stick & mustard, and stir till all combined. Put the cloves, ginger, & celery seed into a cheesecloth bag (or a tea ball, if you have no cloth — i haven’t been able to find cheesecloth in ANY market lately) and add to pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low heat until tomatoes are soft & translucent and liquid is reduced – probably 2-3 hours. Stir occasionally, especially as it gets closer to done, as it will be more likely to stick & burn. Your house will smell like vinegar pretty strongly, so be warned. Remove spices, duh.
You can bottle it that way, or you can have at it with the stick blender to even out the texture a little as I did. I like it still a bit chunky, but not with big honking pieces of tomato. Then give a bunch away, because it makes a hell of a lot.