Don't let it slip you by, pt. 2

 fig. a:  lake girl 1

If you do have the means to get out of town:  get thee to a lake.  If you can spend a night or two there, all the better.  Just make sure to bring plenty of food and drink.  And lots of reading material.

 fig. b:  lake girl 2

 fig. c:  lake girl 3

Keep the wine flowing.

 fig. d:  rosé 1

 fig. e:  rosé 2

Eat with regularity.

In both cases, focus on quality over quantity, although the idea is to celebrate summer, so there's no point in being stingy.

As much as possible, keep things simple.  You'll find that the dishes that are the most elemental will also often be the most memorable ones.

It doesn't get any more elemental than Padrón peppers, which have been a sensation from Spain to California for years, and which are finally making their presence known in Quebec, thanks in no small measure to the Birri Brothers at Jean-Talon market.

 fig. f:  padróns 1

 fig. g:  padróns 2

Pan-fried Padróns 

Padrón peppers
bacon fat or olive oil
kosher salt
limes
Heat the bacon fat or olive oil over medium to medium-high heat in a large pan or skillet.  When the fat begins to smoke, add as many peppers as will fit comfortably.  Sear them until they are just nicely charred.  Toss liberally with kosher salt.  Place on a serving platter and add a squeeze of lime juice.  Serve immediately.  Devour while hot.   

Padrón peppers generally aren't hot, they're pretty mild, but they do have some heat to them, and occasionally you might encounter one that might make your lips tingle.  Maybe even one that makes you sweat.   We call this game Spanish Roulette.  

Serve as a side or as a snack.

Bring a charcoal barbecue, too, if you can.  There's nothing more elemental than fuel (wood, all-natural charcoal, all-natural briquets) and fire.  And if you can find choice oysters in sufficient quantities before you head out to the country, you're really in luck.

  fig. h:  rosé 3 w/ grilled oysters

Grilled Oysters 

fresh choice oysters
parsley
chives
garlic chives
scallions
hickory-smoked bacon
sharp cheddar cheese 

Shuck the oysters, severing the muscle and making sure to spill as little liquor as possible.   

Fry up the bacon until crisp.  Keep about one rounded tablespoon full of the bacon fat in your skillet, pouring the rest in a jar for a later use.  Mince the fried bacon into bits.  [3 strips of bacon made enough bits for 36 oysters.] 

Chop the scallions and the herbs and sauté them in the bacon fat until wilted.  Toss with the bacon bits. [4 scallions, 1/3 bunch of parsley, 1/2 bunch of chives and garlic chives made plenty enough for 36 oysters.] 

Spoon a little of the herb mixture into each oyster. 

Top with grated cheddar cheese. 

Grill over a hot charcoal fire until the cheese has melted. 

Serve immediately.  Savour.

I usually make my Mexican-style corn pretty tricked out:  lime mayonnaise with premium chili powder (freshly toasted and ground); fresh cheese; aged cheese; cilantro; and grated radishes.  But even this stripped-down version is sensational if you start with great corn and you grill your cobs just so.

 fig. i:  grilling corn

Grilled Corn 

fresh sweet corn, preferably Grade A Quebec
mayonnaise
limes
Tabasco sauce
salt 

Shuck the corn completely.   

Mix your lime mayonnaise.  Add enough lime juice to make it just a bit looser than a regular mayonnaise.  Add salt and Tabasco sauce to taste. 

Place the corn cobs directly over a medium-hot charcoal fire.  No need to keep the husk on.  No need to soak the corn in anything.  No need to brush it with any substances.  Being careful not to scorch your corn, roast the cobs over the fire.  Rotate them from time to time.  Don't worry about cooking them completely evenly.  It's okay if some portions are slightly more charred than others.  This will only add to the taste sensation. 

When the cobs have been cooked on all sides, remove from the grill and slather with the lime mayonnaise.   

Allow to cool for about a minute, then serve while still hot. 

Repeat as needed.

[If you don't believe this method works, check out this video.  I used to fuss around with my corn cobs before I grilled them, and they often turned out great, but Mark "The Minimalist" Bittman made a convert out of me.]

As Michelle put things recently, "18 wines, 4 people, 2 days, 1 lake = perfect weekend."

80 Padrón peppers, 36 oysters, 20 eggs, 18 ears of corn, 2 briskets, 2 racks of ribs, and 1 pound of bacon didn't hurt either.

With this much fun built into your weekend, you won't even care if there's a little rain.

 fig. j:  did someone say "rain"?

Go swimming anyway.  You might stay in long enough to see a truly celestial display of light.

We did.

aj

The Young Man & the Salad

fig. a: Esca Corn Salad in 2D

You might have heard of Dave Pasternack. He's the James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef of New York City's highly touted Esca. He's the legendary New York fisherman-chef who developed a reputation for hauling the fish he'd caught himself from Long Beach to his restaurant in Midtown on the Long Island Rail Road (!).* He's the chef who, when he's not serving his own catch (a distinction that makes Esca the only restaurant in New York that serves "year-round wild game that has been personally bagged by the chef," as Mark Singer put it in a New Yorker profile in 2005), deals with somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 suppliers to score the very finest seafood for his restaurant (by comparison, the overwhelming majority of New York restaurant deal with a single seafood wholesaler, and, well, you get what they pay for). He's also the chef who's credited with having kicked off the seafood crudo craze of the last decade.

So when someone profiles Pasternack's cookbook, a book called The Young Man & The Sea: Recipes & Crispy Fish Tales From Esca, you wouldn't expect them to offer up a vegetarian recipe, but that's exactly what we're going to do. After all, by Pasternack's own admission, "this is the single most requested item on the Esca menu in the summer and early fall," and it's definitely early fall. This recipe is a great example of Pasternack's extraordinary talents and his "unaffectedly refined" approach to cuisine. It's also a great way to use up the last of the season's fresh, local sweet corn before it disappears until next year. Plus, you get three great recipes for the price of one...

Esca Corn Salad

6 ears of corn, husked
1/4 cup walnuts
1/2 cup Rosemary Oil (recipe follows)
1/2 cup Braised Chanterelles (recipe follows)
3 tbsp unsalted butter
4 oz dry aged goat cheese or ricotta salata, grated using the small holes of a box grater
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
4 cups arugula, rinsed and dried

Preheat the oven to 300º F.

Prepare a charcoal fire.** Grill the corn over the fire until lightly charred, about 3 minutes. Cut off the narrow end of the cob. Hod the ear with one hand, the flat end resting on the cutting board, and cut the kernels from the cob. Place the kernels in a bowl. Repeat with each ear of corn. Set the kernels aside.

Place the walnuts in a baking tray and toast in the oven for 3 minutes, or until they begin to give off an aroma. Be very careful not to burn them, as the flavor will go bitter quickly. Remove from the oven and set aside.

In a large sauté pan, heat 2 tbsp of the Rosemary Oil. Slightly crush the toasted walnuts in your hand and add to the pan along with the Braised Mushrooms. Sauté for 1 minute. Add the corn kernels, stir to combine, and sauté for 3 minutes, until the corn is hot. Add the butter and 2 tbsp of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper.

Place the arugula leaves in a mixing bowl. Dress them with most of the Rosemary Oil and season with salt and pepper. To serve, spoon the corn mixture into center of four serving plates and sprinkle with half the remaining cheese (or spoon the corn mixture into the center of two serving plates, sprinkle with one-quarter of the remaining cheese, and plan on repeating the process, like we did). Top with the arugula and the rest of the cheese. Drizzle each plate with some of the remaining Rosemary Oil.

Serves 4, unless there's only 2 of you, and you're hungry, and the salad drives you so wild that you can't stop eating it until it's all gone.

Rosemary Oil

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 sprigs rosemary

Place the olive oil in a saucepan and add the rosemary. Heat over a low flame until the oil is war, but not hot. Set aside until the oil is cool. Strain and discard the rosemary sprigs.

Braised Mushrooms

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, minced
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup dry white wine
1 sprig thyme
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 pound mushrooms, such as black trumpets, morels, cultivated button mushrooms, or chanterelles, which, as indicated above, pair best with the corn salad

Trace the perimeter of a large straight-sided sauté pan on parchment paper and cut out the circle. This will serve as the pan's lid.

Heat the olive oil in the sauté pan over a medium flame until hot but not smoking. Add the shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and translucent, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the butter, wine, and thyme, and season with salt and pepper. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer, then add the mushrooms. Toss, then cover with the circle of parchment paper.

Cook the mushrooms at a low simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. They should be very tender. Season with more salt and pepper as needed and serve immediately.

Serves 4.

Note: this recipe makes much more than you need for the corn salad, so feel free to adjust it accordingly, but I'm sure you can find another use for the remaining Braised Mushrooms--they're unbelievably delicious.

[recipes adapted only slightly from David Pasternack and Ed Levine's The Young Man & the Sea: Recipes & Crispy Fish Tales from Esca]

aj

* Don't worry, the fish were on ice and in plastic bags. This guy's a pro.

** As much as we love to fire up our grill, we cheated on this step once because we were out of charcoal. We shaved the corn raw, added 1-2 tbsp of canola oil to a skillet, and sautéd it over medium-high heat for just a few minutes, barely stirring at all, until the bottom layer of kernels began to caramelize. We missed out on that wonderful smoky flavor you get when you grill corn on a barbecue, but the recipe still turned out great.

Back in the Saddle Again, or Late-Summer Chowder

fig. a: corn

Good God, it has been a while, hasn't it?

I'd give you the full story, but there isn't much time. If you're going to make this chowder before Quebec's corn season comes to an end, you're gonna have to hop to it.

fig. b: corn chowder

AEB Corn Chowder

4 ears fresh corn, shucked
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1/4 cup salt pork (rind removed), diced
1 red onion, peeled and diced
1/2 red bell pepper (or some other mild to medium-hot capsicum), diced
1 stalk celery, diced
4 red potatoes, scrubbed and chopped into 1/2" cubes
2 cups whole milk
ground hot red pepper
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Using a sharp knife, cut the kernels from the cobs of corn, then use the back of the knife to scrape down the sides of the cobs to remove as much pulp and juice as possible. Break the scraped cobs in two and simmer the halves in a pot with three cups of water and the teaspoon of salt for twenty minutes.

Melt the tablespoon of butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the salt pork and sauté until the pieces begin to turn crisp at the edges. Add the onion and sauté until it begins to turn translucent. Add the bell pepper and the celery and sauté until the onions are fully translucent and the bell pepper and celery are firm-tender.

Remove the cobs of corn from the water and discard. Replace them with the potatoes and simmer them for 15 minutes, or until they are just tender. Add the contents of the skillet, the corn kernels and any reserved pulp and/or juice, and the milk. Taste for seasoning, adding salt as needed, and grind in plenty of black pepper. Add a little hot red pepper (we used a combination of smoked hot paprika and our own blend of chili powder) and heat the chowder through, just long enough for the corn to cook, about 5-10 minutes. Serve immediately.

Serves 4-6.

The broth is sweet and delicate, the mingling of flavors sublime. Few dishes do justice to farm-fresh corn the way a real corn chowder does. Few things taste as good at this time of year, when the days are still warm but the evenings are nice and cool.

aj

One more corn recipe

It's a good one, too. Excellent, actually. Very delicate. And very simple, too. The trick is the sieve. It's the sieve step that transforms a simple corn soup into something ethereal. The roasted poblanos are a brilliant touch, too. Poblanos aren't the easiest things to find in Montreal, but there are lovely ones at Birri at Jean-Talon Market right now. Perfect for roasting or stuffing.

Corn Soup With Roasted Poblanos

6 ears of sweet corn (the fresher the better)
4 tbsp sweet butter
salt and pepper to taste
3 cups spring water
1/2 cup cream
2 roasted poblano chiles, peeled and minced

With a sharp knife, remove all the corn kernels from the cobs. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a heavy-bottomed pot and add the corn, salt, and finely and freshly ground pepper. Toss the corn in the butter over medium heat. After a few minutes, add the spring water and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally so that the corn does not stick to the bottom. After 15 minutes, remove from the heat and cool slightly; pour in a blender and blend until smooth. Press through a medium-fine sieve to smooth the coarse texture. Add the cream, correct the seasoning, heat until just hot, and garnish with minced poblano chiles.

Serves 6.

[recipe from Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook (1982), which is worth having just for the long list of menus with accompanying descriptions that comes at the end of the book. Pay whatever it takes to get your hands on this book, the accounts of the various occasions, guests and guest of honor, and ensuing hijinks are priceless.]

aj

children of the corn

fig. a: homemade Esquites

No two summers are exactly alike, of course, but every summer around our household has its two or three full-blown food crazes that help define it. Something comes into season and shows up at the market, and for some reason--either because the quality is higher this time around, or because the variety's better, or because it's just caught you at the right moment--we just keep going to that same thing over and over again because it just feels (and tastes) right. Earlier this summer it was cucumbers. They just tasted amazing to me--better than they had in years (and I'm always a fan)--and I found myself preparing them every which way: in salads, in Asian noodle dishes, in sandwiches, in soups, even in drinks. We're still eating our fair share of cukes, because our plants have been producing like nuts and they still taste great, but, really, who are we kidding? Right now it's all about the corn.

Now, again, we're big fans of Quebec corn every year, but this year was different. This year we absolutely could not wait. A lot of this had to do with a feature on Mexico City's Mercado de la Merced that appeared in the May issue of Saveur. Not surprisingly, given its centrality to Mexican cuisine, corn figured prominently in their overview of la Merced's enormous variety of simple pleasures. Just that one photograph of those cobs of blue corn was enough to make us ravenous. But what really pushed us over the edge was the photograph of some lucky person's hand clutching a cup of Esquites: gently stewed corn with lime juice and chile powder served in a cup and topped with crumbled cheese. From the moment we contemplated making Esquites at home, Quebec's corn season couldn't come fast enough. In fact, Michelle was so focused on making Esquites and making it right that she even bought us an epazote plant at Jean-Talon Market so that we could have plenty on hand when that fateful moment arrived.

As it happens, we were in luck: corn season came relatively early this year, and the corn has been fantastic so far, and cheap too (13 for $5 [or $15 for a bag of 72!] at the market on the weekend, 5 for $1 right now at Supermarché P.A.). Naturally, the first thing we made was Esquites.

Esquites

6 cups fresh white (or yellow) corn kernels (you'll need roughly 10 ears of corn)
3 tbsp butter
1 stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped serrano chile (you can substitute a jalapeño if serranos are hard to find in your area)
torn leaves from one stalk epazote (optional)
1 cup queso fresco (or some other kind of fresh cheese, like Portuguese Santa Maria, which is readily available in our neighborhood), crumbled
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp chile powder (such as A.J.'s Chile Powder, my own personal blend)
salt to taste
lime wedges for garnish

Combine the corn kernels, the butter, the fresh chile, the epazote, and 1 1/2 cups of water in a medium pot. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer, covered, until the corn is tender, about 10-15 minutes. Set aside to let the corn and its cooking liquid cool slightly. Add the queso fresco, the lime juice, the chile powder, and the salt and toss well. Divide the corn and the liquid between cups and garnish with a lime wedge.

Serves 6.

[adapted from "La Merced," Mauricio Velázquez de Léon, Saveur, May 2007]

Was it worth the wait? You better believe it. Sweet, spicy, refreshing--we were in heaven. Those four extra portions? We took care of them ourselves.

Our other big corn kick this summer has been grilled corn, appropriately enough, because we've been giving it some Mexican flair and because it turns out the indigenous Mexican root of the word esquites is izquitl, or toasted corn. And, again, we've been grilling corn in some capacity for years now, but it just tastes better this year for some reason. Sometimes we've even had it several days in a row, which isn't something that happens all too often around here.

Grilled Corn

Carefully pull back the husk from 6 ears of corn without detaching them fully. Remove the corn silk. Replace the corn husk so that the kernels are once again hidden from view and tie the leaves in place using a piece of kitchen twine. Soak each ear of corn in water for 5-10 minutes.

Once the ears have soaked for 5-10 minutes, place them on the grill over a low fire. Close the lid and let them cook for 20 minutes.

In the meantime, melt 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter in a small saucepan over low to medium-low heat. Add 2-3 teaspoons of chipotle purée*, 1 1/2 tablespoons of lime juice, and salt to taste and stir.

When the corn has finished cooking on the grill, remove them from the fire, let them cool momentarily, and then pull away the husks and the twine. Put the corn back on the grill and brush liberally with the butter/chipotle/lime juice mixture. Grill the ears of corn for about 5 minutes or so, rolling them around occasionally so that they cook evenly, and allowing them to get just the slighest bit blackened.

fig. b: on the grill

Serve immediately, brushing them with a bit more of the butter mixture if your little heart desires.

Serves 6.

fig. c: the finished product

I love straight-up boiled corn on the cob slathered with butter just as much as the next guy, but at the moment,there's no turning back.

aj

* Chipotle chiles in adobo sauce puréed in a blender or food processor.