Summer Is Made for Salad

My typical church picnic or potluck dish is potato salad because it’s do-ahead-able, cheap in large quantity, and almost universally liked. Plus it goes well with grilled hamburgers and hotdogs or with Sunday ham, typical picnic and potluck dishes. But the heat of Florida in June had me contemplating some other sort of side dish for the past weekend’s church picnic. Something cool, yes, but something not heavy with mayonnaise. Paging through Everyday Pasta by Giada De Laurentiis, I found a recipe for saffron orzo.

Orzo is a curious ingredient because it looks just like rice, but it isn’t. This dish fooled just about everyone going through the buffet line. I know this because I hung out while people were serving themselves, to see what they might say about this salad. “What is that?” I heard a few times. “I think it’s rice,” came the response. I had fun pretending ignorance for a while, but then I revealed the truth. Orzo is pasta.

Like rice and small pasta shapes such as ditaline, cavatelli, and orecchiette, it’s very good in soup. But this is summertime, and I already foisted one soup dish on you, so on to the salad.

Giada’s recipe is a meal unto itself, with sautéed shrimp tossed in at the last minute. It’s also an expensive dish, requiring a teaspoon of saffron threads. (In my grocery store, saffron sells for about $13 a teaspoon.) I didn’t need anything so over-the-top as that. Without the shrimp, and with a less expensive substitution for saffron, this orzo salad, light and refreshing with olive oil, parsley and lemon, is my new go-to potluck dish.

Fooled-You Pasta Salad

Saffron is the dried stigma of a kind of crocus and is prized for both the color it imparts to dishes and for its distinctive bitter flavor. Tumeric comes from a rhizome in the ginger family and has abundant anti-oxidant properties; it is also slightly bitter and gives food a similar yellow color.

4 cups chicken broth or stock
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 pound orzo
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons salt
freshly ground black pepper

Bring the chicken broth to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat so that the broth is simmering and add the tumeric. Simmer for about 5 minutes, giving the tumeric time to infuse the liquid. Return the broth to a boil and then pour in the pasta. Boil pasta until al dente, or about 8 to 10 minutes. Watch the heat carefully and stir frequently; you’re using just enough liquid and there may not be any to drain off.

When the pasta is cooked, drain any excess liquid. Turn the pasta out into a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Stir well. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Is There Any Food Word Sillier than “Kumquat”?

If you didn’t know what a kumquat is, you might not be able to guess its nature from its name. Say the word a few times—“kumquat.” It’s a bit of a tongue twister; try to say it five times fast. Or say it slowly. I can draw out the first syllable pretty easily, but somehow the final syllable clips itself off in my mouth. It’s not a very attractive word, is it? Not like orange, or lemon, or even citron. All the graceful words got taken first.

It’s too bad, too, because a kumquat is actually a very beautiful thing. Picture a citrus fruit the size and shape of a robin’s egg, with the brilliant color of an orange. That’s a kumquat.

You can eat it by itself; you just pop the whole thing in your mouth, rind and all, and work out the seeds with your teeth and tongue, kind of like working out watermelon seeds. Or, you can eat it slice by thin slice, which is what I like to do. The juice is very tart, but the rind is very sweet, so a thin little kumquat coin has a shocking contrast of flavors. Be prepared to pucker and smile.

Because they’re so small, kumquats in my grocery store are sold by the pint and stacked with all the berries. But because they’re so orange, they caught my eye one day last week, and the berries didn’t have a chance. I took a pint home and immediately thought “citrus chicken.” The sweet tartness of the kumquats is balanced by a touch of brown sugar and a kick from serrano chiles. Serranos are pretty hot, so try the dish with one and add more if you like more heat. I served the chicken over polenta, but you could just as easily cook pasta, rice or couscous, making this a fast dish that’s perfect for some night in the middle of the week. And there’s nothing silly about that.

Chicken with Kumquat Pan Sauce

2 tablespoons canola oil, plus more if needed
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, pounded ½ inch thick, patted dry, and seasoned with salt and pepper
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
2 serrano chiles, diced small (more or less to taste)
1 inner stalk celery, with leaves, diced small with leaves chopped
½ cup white wine (preferably with citrus notes) or orange juice or chicken broth
juice of 1 lime
½ pint kumquats, thinly sliced, seeds removed
1 tablespoon brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Cook the chicken about 5 minutes, or until just cooked through, turning once. Remove to a plate and keep warm. Reduce the heat to medium. Add a bit more oil to the pan, if needed, to make about a tablespoon and a half. Add the shallot, chiles and celery to the hot oil and cook until softened, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Deglaze the pan with the wine, orange juice, or chicken broth and the lime juice; stir in the kumquats and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste. Return the chicken to the pan and spoon the sauce over; cook until the chicken is heated through, 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle the parsley on top.

A Welcoming Soup

With temperatures over 100 degrees, it’s definitely summertime in Florida. Which makes it weird that I’m giving you a soup recipe, particularly one bearing hearty winter ingredients such as kale and smoked sausage. But soup is one of those comfort foods you might take to a friend’s house, particularly one you haven’t seen in a while. With soup in hand, you’re always welcome. And I’m hoping you welcome me back to writing.

I’ve been thinking about this soup for a week. I recently read The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto, in which she cooks an excessive number of dishes containing either kale or white beans or both. I have never eaten kale, but have wanted to, and we don’t eat many kidney-type beans around here. But the gusto with which Maisto cooked, ate, and wrote about these ingredients got me thinking. And so I’ve been composing this soup in my mind ever since.

It starts with smoked sausage. Well, no, even before the sausage, this soup starts with tomatoes, a good summertime ingredient. Use them from your garden, if you’re fortunate to have such a thing. Or, if you must procure yours from the supermarket, like I do, ramp up the flavor by roasting them first. The trick to a good roasted tomato is to put the half-sheet pan in the oven while it is pre-heating. When the oiled, salted tomatoes hit the hot pan, the sizzle tells you you’re one step ahead on caramelization. You can roast the tomatoes a day ahead.

So, then, after the tomatoes comes the sausage; slices of it browned on both sides form the flavor base. After that, this soup is pretty straight-forward: aromatics and veggies are cooked in the sausage fat, a little wine deglazes the pot, and the white bean puree thickens the broth. I kept the seasonings simple—using only rosemary, black pepper and garlic—to keep the flavors clean.

Kale and Sausage Soup with Roasted Tomatoes and White Bean Puree
1 pound Roma tomatoes, halved lengthwise, quartered if large, pulp removed
3 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 pound smoked sausage links, cut into ½-inch thick slices
2 medium onions, chopped
1 large zucchini, quartered lengthwise and then sliced
½ teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 large bunch kale, ribs removed, leaves roughly chopped
more olive oil, if needed
½ cup white wine, optional
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cans cannellini beans, pureed
more kosher salt, to taste

Preheat oven to 425˚. Put a half-sheet pan or jelly roll pan into the oven while it is heating up. Toss the tomatoes, olive oil and salt in a medium bowl. When the oven is hot, slide the pan out and pour the tomatoes onto it. Enjoy the sizzle. With tongs, turn the tomatoes skin side down. Roast for about 10 minutes, or until the skin is lightly charred in places. Remove the tomatoes and then roughly chop them when they are cool enough to handle. Set them aside.

In a Dutch oven, brown the sausage slices on both sides over medium-high heat in batches, removing to a paper towel to drain. Reduce heat to medium-low. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat. Add the chopped onions to the hot fat and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are beginning to become translucent, but not browned. Increase heat to medium and add the zucchini, rosemary, and black pepper. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring a time or two. Add the garlic and cook about 30 seconds. Add half of the kale and stir as the kale on the bottom starts to wilt. When all has more or less wilted a bit, add in the rest of the kale. If it looks a little dry, add more olive oil. When the kale is wilted, but still bright green, deglaze the pan with the wine, if using. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the wine is reduced; then pour in the chicken stock and bean puree. Bring the soup to a low boil; reduce the heat and simmer about 15 minutes. Add the roasted tomatoes and browned sausage to the pot and simmer another 15 minutes.

If you have it, you can toss a bit of the rind of Parmigiano-Reggiano into the pot as the soup simmers. Your friends will thank you and will probably welcome you back, no matter how long you’ve been gone, and no matter how hot it is outside.