Salade Niçoise

Summer is a time when most us prefer lighter, refreshing foods. While salad are great and delicious any time of the year, they acquire added significance during summers. Frankly, most of us prefer to stay away from long cooking and the heat it generates.

We’ve done a few salad recipes on this pages, but now we bring you an easy and delicious old favorite:

Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients

Salad

• 1 large handful of haricots verts (thin French green beans)
• 1 small head romaine lettuce, torn
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
• 4 medium tomatoes, peeled and quartered
• 6 preserved artichokes hearts, drained and quatered
• 6 salted anchovies, rinsed
• 12 black olives,
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Dressing

• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 2 small cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. Cook the beans briefly in salted water until tender crisp.
2. Meanwhile, put torn lettuce in a shallow bowl and arrange eggs, vegetables, anchovies, and olives on top.Sprinkle with parsley.
3. Whisk the vinegar, mustard and garlic, then slowly drizzle in the olive  oil. Season toast, pour over the salad, and serve with crusty bread.

Enjoy, gentle reader, enjoy!

CS

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Unusually Creative and Delicious

Seth Warshaw, is the owner and executive chef of etc steakhouse (1409 Palisade Avenue; Teaneck, NJ 07666; Telephone: 201.357.5677). The De Gustibus School at Macy’s featured him as one of the top chefs in their The Fine Art of Kosher Cooking series.

Last week, Wednesday, I found my way to his establishment. It was a very pleasant, delicious experience and more than amply confirmed Salvatore Rizzo‘s (De Gustibus‘ owner) high assessment of Chef Seth.

The walls are painted red, otherwise the decor is rather spartan. The dishes I tasted showed tremendous creativity, a rare understanding of the riches of flavor and very nice presentation.

I started with their Pomegranate Rolled Rib Eye..

Pomegranate Rolled Rib Eye

It came accompanied with a pomegranate and Satsuma clementine salad in a grapefruit reduction. The aged rib eye was very tender and juicy. The flavors were a superb blend of meat and subtle fruit juices. Succulent!

I followed with Sweetbreads with Glazed Rutabaga.

Sweetbreads with Glazed Rutabaga

It consisted of superbly prepared sweetbreads with a delicate lima bean puree and glazed rutabaga with a balsamic reduction. I then moved on to the Pomegranate Hangar Steak.

Pomegranate Hangar Steak

Because of the rules of kashrus (where meats must be salted for an hour – to extract the blood – after soaking in water for 30 minutes), in spite of all the rinsing, the meat ultimately absorbs some salt. As a result hangar steaks are very salty. Chef Seth, however, has found a unique way of enhancing the steak’s flavor without one noticing the salt. The result is a very juicy, tender, steak; yet another tribute to the Chef’s creativity and knowledge of the blending of flavors. The steak came with a sweet potato mash, haricot verts, caramelized onion rings in a pomegranate reduction.

I topped off the meal with a House Made Zeppole Trio with vanilla ice cream. Each zeppole was covered with a different sprinkling. One had a combination of fine cinnamon and confectioner’s sugar, another a sprinkling of coconut and the third had cocoa powder. Fried Italian pastries, they were sweet and indescribably delicious. What a great way to crown a superb meal!

CS