Culinary Concoctions Week Six: The Ingredient

So...math equation for you all:

(Work Stress + Life Stress) (Lack of sleep + Middle-of-the-week Tummy Woes)  = Me cooking, but not writing about it.

I can't believe how I've fallen behind with blogging this week! Dang it!

So...with that, a brief on this week's ingredient, chicory.

Jason and I went to (surprise, surprise) the Hillsdale Farmer's Market on Sunday and raided Ayer Creek Farm's stand, meddling our way in between women stockpiled with parsnips, salad greens and slices of winter squash boasting the boldest orange hue I've ever seen, to pick up a few bunches of chicory.

"I have no idea what to do with these," I confessed to Jason, whose eye was wandering to the one pound bag of ground cornmeal (that yes, he subsequently purchased).

So, come Sunday night, I did my research:

Chicory, a/k/a blue sailors, coffee weed and succory, is a bushy perennial herbaceous plants that's cultivate for salad leaves. However, it's roots are also used, baked then ground and used as a coffee substitute.

In the US, real chicory is often confused as curly endive. They're not one in the same. However, chicory leaves also include raddichio (a/k/a choke lettuce), sugarleaf and Belgian endives.

Ahhhh it all makes sense now.

To really geek out with ingredient research...I found that the chicory plant is one of the earliest plants cited in recorded literature. Horace mentions it in his own diet: "As for me, olives, endives and mallows provide substance." While I loathe olives, at least that gives me a starting point for creating a recipe.

Moreover, Lord Monboddo described the plant in 1779 as the 'chicoree,' which the French cultivated as a pot herb (No, fellow Portlanders, not a pot pot herb). Rather, chicory is, and has been since the Napoleanic Era, used in coffee or as a coffee substitute. And of course, even the Egyptians used it for the same purpose.

Recipe starting point number two...complete.

More about the recipe tomorrow!

Week Five: The Story

Nuts + Food Processor= My new best friend.

I'm not even kidding.

Salt and peppered peppers

Last night's Romesco sauce -- with hazelnuts in lieu of almonds -- was de-lish-us (Yes, that's the phonetic spelling of delicious; don't even get the idea that I'm all-of-a-suddenly spelling words incorrectly. Sheesh!)

I mean, I would have spent HOURS slicing and dicing and mincing to get the kind of consistency that the food processor gave me for the Romesco sauce. Sometimes technology really is a great addition in our lives.

What was supposed to be a lazy Saturday was, well...exactly that. After all, I didn't actually get out of bed until well after ten a.m. and -- believe it or not -- didn't actually caffeinate my body until nearly noon (Which, occurred at Water Avenue coffee --- HANDS DOWN the best latte I've ever had. The aroma...taste...texture...body...rose...all absolutely gorgeous and delicious). Still, despite an ungodly sleep-in, I did manage to gather myself to the grocery store and pick up ingredients for this week's Romesco sauce.

It was (and still is!) fantastic!

Roasted bell peppers!

I, unfortunately, had to recall the list of ingredients from my end-of-the-week mind, which means I totally forgot sherry vinegar. That said, after pureeing all the ingredients up and tasting it's richness, I added a relatively healthy dose of balsamic vinegar for some acidic relief. The roasted red peppers added a great paprika-ish flavor (BTW, make sure when you're roasting bell peppers -- or really, any vegetable for that matter -- to line your baking pan with aluminum foil; it'll save you a couple hours of pan-saving scrubbing) and the hazelnuts...oh man, oh man...they gave the smoky, acidic, peppery base a sweet, garlicky (Because yes, I toasted the hazelnuts for about eight minutes in olive oil and garlic before hand), fatty mouth and flavor that was just...to...die...for.

Seriously, kind of a bitch
to peel. Note: Toast 15 min.

Word of the wise: When you're toasting hazelnuts via saute, make sure to give them a good fifteen minutes; the longer they go, the easier the papery film will be to peel; Jason and I spent a comical twenty minutes trying every which way to peel the outside coating of the toasted hazelnuts --- rubbing them with our fingers, rubbing them in our palms with each other, etc. --- only to have a handful land on the floor (as well as into our mouths; but I mean, who can really resist a toasted hazelnut, especially one who bathed in hot olive oil with slices of fresh garlic, right?).

Dinner! I just wish the sauce
didn't look like cat food

The great thing about this sauce was it's thickness; while I'm sure I needed to add more olive oil (I probably only used 1/4 cup, instead of the called for-1/2 cup, I was really happy with the consistency, which turned out to be more hummus-like and less pesto-ish. I pan-fried the remainder of our New Year's weekend halibut fillet which I plated atop a salad of arugula, avocado, grapefruit and homemade croutons and carefully spooned a heaping tablespoon of Romesco sauce -- okay...Romesco dip -- on top of the lemony halibut for a light, but filling Saturday evening meal.

It really was the perfect way to end a very, VERY lazy Saturday.