may the road rise with you
citrus cake and the discovery of gribiche
Another Friday? Seems fake but ok. On Monday I woke up before my alarm and thought, “Ah, Saturday. I can sleep a little longer, and then what will I do with my day?” before remembering the weekend already happened and I had to go to work. Lately I’ve been missing the freedom I had last spring and summer while I was unemployed, waking up and taking my time drinking coffee and doing the crossword before settling in to do some work in the garden, tackle a big cleaning project, practice yoga, or cook something elaborate. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my job, and I love not worrying about money so much anymore, but when you’re working it’s more difficult to feel like your days are your own, even when you’re not on the clock, because there’s always so much else that needs to be done. Completing day-to-day tasks like laundry or vacuuming can feel less satisfying when you’re doing them after a day of work— because they sort of just feel like more work.
But, I have been a little more motivated to get creative and spend time on projects in the kitchen lately, which is heartening because I feel like I’ve been struggling somewhat these past few weeks, only making things to use up produce, repeating meals often. Which is fine, but it doesn’t make me feel exactly inspired to get cooking when I’m only doing it because we need to eat. I’ve also gotten better about keeping the fancier meals for Sundays or days when I work from home so that I’m not coming in at 5pm after a full shift at the warehouse to immediately spend another hour and a half on my feet making dinner.
The fluctuating weather this week has also been kind of nice. I appreciated all the warm sun we had last week, but a spring garden needs rain, and I also appreciated the opportunity to feel cozy. We went to drop off some things at my mom’s on Saturday, and on the way had lunch at the White Spot drive-in, which felt like being in another time: most of the chain has already pivoted more towards a pub-style restaurant, so that ones that still have these 70s-era parking lot menus have probably been doing great business during the pandemic. Anyway, eating a burger & fries in the car is evocative of road trips, something else I deeply miss, so it felt comforting to have a tiny taste of the past (and hopefully, the future).
The month has seemed to fly by, or at least, I can’t seem to remember any details from it, which is basically the same thing. So this past weekend I had to get around to making my cake for April, a vegan citrus and olive oil cake, from Alicia Kennedy for Tenderly. I’d been meaning to make it since the recipe was published and since I had nothing in particular in mind for my cake of the month early on, I was glad to remember this one. It was also great because it’s vegan and you can use any citrus you like, so it required me to buy no new ingredients (unlike last month’s cake, which required three different things from the dairy section and a visit to the bulk bin for chocolate chips). Thus I could make it on a rainy Sunday afternoon without a trip to the store.
I love an olive oil cake because it makes for a wonderfully moist cake and provides a slight bitterness which takes the edge off the sugar, making it feel acceptable to eat as a snack or part of breakfast and not just for dessert. Citrus goes great with olive oil, of course, so this cake feels balanced and sophisticated even though it’s incredibly easy to make. I had half an orange in the fridge so I used the zest in the cake and sliced the fruit for the top, and used zest and juice of a lemon to make up the rest. I don’t have a 9” pan aside from layer cake pans (it’s a problem I keep forgetting to solve), so I baked it in an 8” square pan and it came out nicely browned and rustic-looking. The cake texture is more similar to pound cake rather than the airy Bouchon-style olive oil cake, and it’s deliciously soft and fragrant. You could make this cake right now, and you won’t regret it.
On Sunday, I had the sporadic but humbling experience of being reminded to always read a recipe all the way through before starting while we were making a couple of things from Yottam Ottolenghi’s book Flavor (which I received this winter as a birthday gift from a reader— thank you!) for a semi-fancy dinner. I had a bunch of carrots to use up so I wanted to make the roasted carrot salad with chamoy, and to go with it, I chose the coconut lime potato gratin. The carrot salad came together fine, but with the potato recipe, after the initial 40 minutes’ cooking time in the foil, I somehow missed that it was meant to be in the oven for another 50 minutes after that. However, I didn’t feel like eating dinner at midnight, and I’ve made plenty of gratins in the past that didn’t require a 90-minute cooking time, so I’m happy to say it came out just fine after another 20-25 minutes. I can only assume the additional time is to create an extra-crispy crust.
This was my first time encountering chamoy, but essentially it’s a spicy sweet-sour dressing made with spices and pickled fruit. In this instance dried apricots are used with sumac, chili flakes, and lime. The roasted carrots are tossed in the dressing while they’re hot, and the salad is served at room temperature once the flavours have had time to meld. For texture and umami, roasted salted almonds are used as a topping, as well as herbs and more chopped apricots for additional contrast. This was delightfully tart and spicy and it worked really nicely with the creamy, lime-scented potatoes.
I learned that a gratin doesn’t necessarily involve cheese, but merely requires a browned crust, in this case achieved through coconut cream (I used full-fat coconut milk). I also didn’t bother arranging the potatoes in a pattern (though I probably would for a dinner party or cookoff), I just spread them evenly into the pan because I wanted to get it in the oven quickly. The coconut milk caramelized along the bottom and sides nicely, and 5 minutes at a slightly higher temperature at the end gives it a bit of extra crispness. The chips of fried garlic, chili, ginger, and green onion on top are absolutely stellar, and the aromatic lime zest on top finishes everything off perfectly. I don’t know that I’ll ever bother letting this cook for the full 90 minutes in the recipe because I enjoyed it so much after 65.
Right now I’m in a similar position with asparagus to what I was in late August last year with zucchini: I keep getting it in my produce bin and am running out of new things to make with it. In the book Milk Street: Tuesday Nights, I found a recipe for a quick side dish of asparagus gribiche. I’d never made sauce gribiche before, but it’s a French sauce that’s sort of a middle ground between making mayo and making egg salad: boiled eggs are separated and the yolks are mixed with oil, vinegar, dijon mustard, and then the whites are chopped and added to the mix with herbs and capers. This recipe fries the capers instead, which is always a welcome way to add a hit of crisp texture.
To go with it, I made some quinoa and marinated some tofu in the remainder of the chamoy mixed with some soy sauce, maple syrup, garlic powder, and balsamic vinegar. The tofu was the first I’ve managed to find in weeks amidst the shortage and was firm rather than extra-firm, so it came out of the oven with a nice crisp exterior and was still soft inside. The marinade was actually one of the better ones I’ve made, salty and tangy (my usual go-to is ginger-sesame, which would not work here), and it was good using the tofu to mop up the extra sauce gribiche, too. Another cool thing about marinating tofu as opposed to meat is you can use the extra marinade however you want because it isn’t contaminated, so I drizzled a little on the quinoa for flavour. This was an excellent dinner that felt more fancy than it should have for how easily I was able to throw it together.
Also this week, a fantastic bucatini carbonara with fried oyster mushrooms, and bacon from One Arrow, a local Indigenous-owned meat company. Although I did use bacon this time, I think the mushrooms and maybe a dash of liquid smoke would prove to be a nice vegetarian alternative. And before the weather turned rainy again, we made a beautiful roasted cauliflower salad with pistachios, cumin-lemon dressing, and shredded carrots (another Ottolenghi creation). I made some great sandwiches this week for lunches too, one using leftovers of the marinated tofu, which was very good with some sprouts, honey mustard, avocado and cucumber.
Media:
Despite my annoyance at clearly cursed viral tiktok recipes (looking at you, popcorn salad), I found this piece about the influence of tiktok on food culture really lovely. It’s not long but it covers a lot of ground, from the idea that the short format encourages creativity and intuitive cooking, to users on the platform holding each other accountable for appropriation or upholding diet culture, to being able to experience a variety of food styles and cultures since the algorithm doesn’t necessarily favour big-time influencers. There’s so much in here that’s quotable and I really recommend reading the whole thing, but I’ll leave you with my favourite bit:
Spence is less concerned about the app's abundance of fast food videos, cheese-laden recipes, and Dorito casseroles. “Will fast food be nourishing everyday at every meal? No. But it's not something to demonize either. I think we as adults have a responsibility to teach children about foods to eat that will fuel them, but it's also okay to have ‘fun’ foods.” Learning to make “fun foods" might also help give young users the confidence to make more balanced meals—and then more complex dishes. It's a natural progression for most cooks.
Also this week, Epicurious announced that they would no longer be publishing recipes featuring beef, as they felt it irresponsible to do so while simultaneously acknowledging the ecological impact of beef agriculture. Similarly to how focus shifted to chicken as a healthier alternative to beef decades ago, but then chicken consumption increased so much as to make the change hardly noticeable, I don’t think this will have much impact on the actual effects of raising beef, but it is important to see a major food publication move towards a mindset of accepting responsibility versus publishing content as if it were removed from the supply chain. The funniest part of the backlash to this announcement from people claiming they’re demonizing meat eaters and whatnot is that they actually made the change on the site more than a year ago, and no one noticed until they announced it this week. So people who think beef is super important to them may find it’s easier than they thought to eat less of it, or even move away from it altogether.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, and this week if you can spare it, I ask that you donate to help combat the COVID crisis in India via one of the links here. And lastly, it’s very clear this alignment chart was not made by a Canadian.