Zing! Went the Strings of My Salsa Verde

Plus: Quick Chicken Stock, Pavlova, A Steak Dinner, and The Parenting Premiere.

Hey everyone,

How do you turn a humdrum dinner into something truly special? No, you don’t lace it with LSD. You hand-chop an Italian salsa verde on your cutting board.

Last night we had friends over and I served up slow-roasted salmon (just baked on a cookie sheet at 250) on Rancho Gordo Marcella beans which I cooked in homemade chicken stock (more on that in a sec). But to punch up the experience, I hand-chopped a salsa verde using parsley leaves, celery leaves, two cloves of garlic, two anchovies, and the rind of a preserved lemon.

See that pile? That is a pile of zippy, head-flippy flavor. And the hand-chopping ensures a chunky, complex texture (if you did this in a food processor, you’d have a liquid). Once it’s all chopped up, you put it in a bowl, add a spoonful of Dijon and some capers and the juice of one lemon….

Then you stir in several big glugs of olive oil. It’s okay if it doesn’t emulsify: a loose sauce is fine, especially for drizzling over beans and salmon.

But man-oh-man is this good stuff! It would make a rubber tire taste good. And the more people you’re serving, the more olive oil you can add to stretch it out. Just keep tasting to keep it zippy.

As for that chicken stock, I roasted a chicken last week and after we picked the carcass clean, I threw it into a Dutch oven with a whole yellow onion (unpeeled, that’s what tints the stock yellow), a celery rib, and no carrots because I forgot to buy carrots.

The key is not to let it come to a boil: you want it just to let up a bubble every few seconds, that way the stock doesn’t turn cloudy. But I cooked it like this for three hours and then strained it into containers.

Next time you roast a chicken, save the carcass! That stuff is liquid gold.

For dessert last night, I whipped up Nigella Lawson’s pavlova. Let’s go to the tape:

amateurgourmet

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Pavlova’s a great dessert to make if you’re serving gluten-free guests and you want something substantial but not too heavy. Plus it feels very springy.

Speaking of heavy, on Friday I told Craig to run to Paisano’s to pick up a rib-eye steak big enough for two.

I was imagining something large width-wise, but this one was very thick. I cooked it in a metal skillet and almost immediately set off the smoke alarm (poor Winston, he always quivers when that happens):

The key was searing it on the stove, flipping it back and forth until deep golden brown, and then finishing in the oven. It took a while to get it to medium-rare.

Once it got there, I took the steak out to rest and made a sauce by adding a chopped shallot, a big glug of red wine, a sprig of rosemary, and some butter to emulsify.

The potatoes were just little potatoes that I tossed with two cloves of garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted in a 425 oven. Here’s the dinner all served up:

Not bad for a one-man steakhouse! And much cheaper too.

Finally, Craig’s movie The Parenting premiered on Tuesday last week and it was such a blast (it’s currently the #1 or #2 movie on HBO Max).

Here’s Craig on stage at the DGA theater with screenwriter Kent Sublette introducing the movie:

And here are our moms with Kate McKinnon at the pre-screening drinks (Kate’s not in the movie, but Kent is the head writer for SNL so there were lots of SNL people in attendance):

It was such a fun night; the result of many years of labor on Craig’s part. I’m very proud!

Let’s look at some links:

• Top NYC bartender takes a job at Hillstone (Punch);

• The Best Cocktail Glasses for Curating an Entirely New Personality (Eater);

• Asma Khan’s recipes for North Indian chicken curry and cabbage stir-fry (The Guardian).

That’s all for today, folks!

Not sure if I’m allowed to share this yet, but I just got a look at the Kirkus review of my novel and it’s a rave. Here’s how it ends:

“Roberts’ novel is a confection—satisfyingly over-the-top—but with complex notes; he has a true knack for understanding the ways that food rules every aspect of our lives, from the gourmet’s obsession to the shame and guilt surrounding indulgence. But even readers who don’t know a branzino from bearnaise will find plenty to enjoy here, from the colorful secondary characters to the zippy plot. A debut novel that dishes up one of the most delectable ingredients of all: fun.”

!!!

Well that made my day….

Until next time!

Your pal,

Adam