It is an odd time to think about ribsticking, cold-weather food, but it is shaping up to be an odd summer. Eventually we will be past this middling weather, wedged firmly into those 110-degree-in-the-shade days that convince you that summer is indeed endless, but not in a good way. For now, though, I am left curious and amused at the realization that the temperature in Edinburgh on our last day there was 20 degrees warmer than the temperature in New York on my first lunchtime visit to my local farmer's market last Wednesday. I came home from Scotland looking like a sun-kissed lotus eater. You would have thought that I'd spent two weeks in the desert.
Even without summer weather, we are sliding into summer food. Laurie Colwin once said that novice cooks could produce an excellent meal by applying heat to one dish, and buying the rest in. I would add that experienced cooks can produce an excellent meal this way, too, and tonight I managed to do it without applying any heat to anything at all, at least until dessert. With the last of the Italian arugula and sorrel, a pint of grape tomatoes, a pair of lamb kebabs and a dressing made from mustard, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and shallots, we made a salad that reminded me, after months of sweet potato braises and bowls of cold pickled cabbage, that there is something about meat and greens together that makes me want to put on a light cotton shift and ballet flats, and enjoy the feel of not having layers of clothing on my back. The lamb kebabs came from a souvlaki cart in my neighborhood, grilled by a guy who knows that a combination of lemon juice and a little salt does wonders for lamb. If I can't grill it myself, I can come close to feeling like I did. It left me plenty of energy to apply heat to dessert, which came from an old Amanda Hesser piece in the New York Times: 1 slice of mild sourdough bread, sliced in half (one half for me, one for Lloyd), brushed with olive oil, lightly toasted under the broiler, topped with an ounce of semisweet chocolate, popped back under the broiler for about 10 seconds, taken out, drizzled with a little more olive oil and some big flakes of sea salt. If you are furrowing your brow at the thought of chocolate, olive oil and salt, I promise you that it is really, really delicious, satisfying without making one feel as if one's pockets were stuffed with buckshot, the way that too many death-by-chocolate desserts do.
We have the rest of the summer to eat this way, the salads and the chocolate bread and the fruit fools and the corn on and off the cob, but on Thursday I took advantage of late winter/early spring's last hurrah, and made ourselves a beautiful heaping Dutch oven fulla these:
Stovies, PTMYB version
serves 6 average eaters, 8 finicky dieters or 4 lumberjacks
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large or 2 medium onions, diced
12 ounces sausage links (I used garlic-and-cheese-flavored chicken sausages), cut into coins
3 pounds yellow potatoes (I used Nicola potatoes from the greenmarket), peeled, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2" half-moons
10 ounces hard cider
salt and pepper
Heat olive oil and butter in a Dutch oven until butter is melted and foaming. Add onions and stir, cooking gently, for about 5 minutes. You may want to season the onions with some salt and pepper. Add the sausage and cook for another 5 minutes. Add potatoes, more salt and pepper, and stir until potatoes are well coated with the onions, butter and oil. Add cider and bring to the boil. Turn heat down, cover and cook for 30 minutes. At the end of the cooking time, uncover, turn up the heat and boil for about 5-7 minutes, until liquid is slightly reduced -- do not boil dry! Turn off heat and let everything settle for about 5 minutes. Before serving, break up the potatoes slightly with a potato masher. You are not going for mashed potatoes here; what you want is a mix of textures. Serve it forth, eat it up, and ask yourself, I wonder why they're called stovies, anyway? Say, I wonder if Jen will mention this over the weekend?