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In reading some of the other cooks’ comments, I decided to place the sliced onion in white wine vinegar before plating. This was done to remove some of the onion’s bite. One cook suggested using rice wine vinegar. Another cooked used a recipe by Tejal Rao. Ms. Rao recipe calls for soaking the onion in a combination of 1/4 cup white wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of kosher salt for 1-2 hours. As I didn’t have that much time, the white wine vinegar was perfect. Also noted, were some tweaks by other cooks such as roasting the corn and onion on the grill, adding homemade croutons and another added pearl couscous. I grilled the chicken for approximately 7 minutes on one side and 5 on the other. I removed the chicken from the grill and placed it atop the vegetables. The chicken was moist, had a nice warm, mild heat from the chili powder and slight smokiness. The juice from the cooked chicken added more flavor to the raw vegetables. It was an absolutely wonderful meal for a warm summer night. There were additional green beans in the CSA box this week. My six-year-old granddaughter has had her fill of green beans this summer. I trimmed and blanched the beans and bagged up a portion for my daughter to pull out of the freezer after the growing season. My neighbor is a weekend fisherman. He, along with his brother-in-law who owns the boat, have been trying to catch “keepers” most weekends. Keepers are fish that meet the New Jersey Fish and Wildlife guidelines. Recently they were lucky enough to snare some fluke and shared some with me. Fortunately, the fish I’m given is cleaned and filleted. I had a recipe from earlier in the summer from the New York Times column “What to Make Next Week,” June 24 2023. Fluke au Gratin was adapted by the Times’ Sam Sifton from the cookbook “Long Island Seafood Cook Book” by J. George Frederick. For the recipe you’ll need unsalted butter, a shallot, a garlic clove, button mushrooms, fresh chives, fresh parsley, white wine, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, white-fleshed fish (fluke, flounder or sole) and dried bread crumbs. The recipe begins by preparing the mushroom mixture which consists of butter, shallots, garlic, minced mushrooms, chives and parsley. Next, white wine and vinegar are added, the mixture is reduced by half before seasoning with salt and pepper. Select a baking dish large enough to hold the fish in an even layer and butter. Spread half the mushroom mixture on the bottom then top with the fish fillets; season with salt and pepper. Cover with a layer of sliced mushrooms. To the remaining mushroom mixture, you’ll add wine; now spread over the fillets. Breadcrumbs go on top along with cold butter that has been diced into small cubes. It takes just 10-12 minutes for the top to get golden, opaque and flaky. What a delicious preparation. My poor husband was looking forward to fried fish fillets, but he also enjoyed the fish made this way. The au gratin mixture was moist and had enough acid to make the fish a light and refreshing meal. If you’re finding yourself with an abundance of zucchini in your garden, or just need some new recipes, insert zucchini into the search box on my website for a wide variety of recipes. I had from a prior Dreyer Farm’s CSA box a nice size green zucchini. While I could have gone with one of the many recipes on my website (Where’s the fun in that?), I found on The New York Times webpage, Cooking, a recipe for Zucchini Cake with Ginger and Hazelnuts by the late food contributor, Molly O’Neill. For the recipe you’ll need all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, orange juice, orange zest, freshly grated ginger root, vanilla, zucchini and chopped hazelnuts. While I do have a bag of hazelnuts in my freezer, they’re a bit expensive for this cake, therefore, I used walnuts. By the way, if you’re looking for an excellent source for nuts, seeds, dried fruit, superfood powders, chocolates and sweets etc., I highly recommend nuts.com. They are a family-owned business based right here in New Jersey. I found them through an offer on my American Express card and I’ve been using them ever since. Back to the cake. I also made two other adjustments to Ms. O’Neil’s recipe. I reduced the sugar based on other cooks’ comments from the recipe’s webpage, to 3/4 cup and made muffins (15 of them) and baked at 350° for approximately 20-25 minutes. What a delightful recipe. Although we couldn’t detect the ginger (some cooks added an extra teaspoon), the orange zest added a lovely flavor component to the bread; it was delicious. To avoid overindulging, I packed them up and put them in the freezer to be shared at my two granddaughters’ joint birthday brunch celebration this weekend. Fluke au Gratin Recipe by Henri Charpentier Adapted by Sam Sifton From “A Taste of Summer,” The New York Times, June 16, 2021 “This is a very old recipe, taken from the kitchen of Henri’s in Lynbrook, N.Y., opened by an extravagant French restaurateur named Henri Charpentier in 1910. It asks for flounder, known on Long Island as fluke, but you could make it with cod or haddock or halibut, with freshwater trout or catfish, with any mild-flavored fish. It’s an elegant and really quite simple preparation, the fish fillets baked on top of and beneath a butter sauce cooked with chopped shallots, garlic, chives, parsley and minced mushrooms, brightened with lemon juice and white wine, and with bread crumbs, sliced mushrooms and dots of butter strewn across the top. You can make the sauce in the morning, if you like, and assemble the dish for the oven just before dinner, making it a breeze for weeknight entertaining. But it’s no stretch to do it all, as Charpentier might have said, “à la minute.” —Sam Sifton” Yield: 4 servings Time: 30 minutes Ingredients 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing 1 small shallot, peeled and minced 1 garlic clove, peeled and minced 2 tablespoons minced button mushrooms, plus ½ cup thinly sliced button mushrooms 1 tablespoon minced chives 1 tablespoon minced parsley, plus 1 tablespoon roughly chopped parsley for garnish ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons white wine 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar 1teaspoon lemon juice Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 to 1½ pounds fluke, flounder, sole or other mild, white-fleshed fish fillets ⅓ cup dried bread crumbs Preparation
Grilled Chicken with Tomatoes and Corn By Ali Slagle, The New York Times Servings: 4 Time: 30 Minutes Ingredients 1½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, patted dry 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing the grill grates 1 tablespoon chili powder Kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) 1½ pounds large ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced 1 ear of corn, kernels cut from the cob (about 1 cup kernels) 1 small red onion, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves (optional) PREPARATION
Zucchini Cake with Ginger and Hazelnuts By Molly O’Neill Featured in “Food: How to Stuff a Wild Zucchini The New York Times, August 15, 1999 And The New York Times Cooking webpage Serves: 12 Time: 1 hour, plus cooling time INGREDIENTS 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda ¾ teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 1¼ cups sugar 2 large eggs ½ cup vegetable oil ⅓ cup orange juice 2 teaspoons orange zest 2 teaspoons peeled, grated ginger root 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1½ cups grated zucchini ½ cup finely chopped hazelnuts* PREPARATION
*Based on comments from other cooks on the webpage for this recipe on “NYT Cooking,” I reduced the sugar to ¾ cup and used walnuts in place of hazelnuts. I also make muffins, instead of a cake. I made 15 muffins and baked for 30 minutes. However, I would start checking after 20 minutes as your oven maybe different.
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