When we walk in the door in the evening beyond tired and crunched for time, this salad has stepped up for dinner so many times we've lost count. It's made for improvising with what you have on hand: toss in coarsely crushed salted almonds, dried cherries, or Craisins; add slices of leftover chicken breast or grilled shrimp; anything goes.
This classic Vietnamese dipping sauce is tangy, salty, spicy, and pungent. If you use fish sauce, it will be clear, and if you use anchovy paste it will be a bit cloudy. Since fish sauce is made from anchovies, the flavor is the same. Either way you go, Nuoc Cham is a tangy complement to Shrimp and Mango Summer Rolls
Tomato marmalades are the perfect partners for crackers, cornbread, or sourdough.
This is a pretty standard pickle, good for both sea rocket pods and saltwort. If you are inland, you can also use it for purslane, another succulent plant. Keep the proportions of salt, vinegar, and water and you can then vary the flavors to your liking. This recipe can be halved.
Serve this on toasted pita wedges or over raw vegetable leaves, such as endive.
You can spread the sauce on tortillas, roast chicken or meats in it, use it to dress a jicama-orange salad…you get the gist. This sauce is meant to be hot, but if you use only one can of the chipotles in adobo and the full amount of the jam, it’s fairly calm.
Ingredients
Wine syrups are the answer to what you can easily have waiting in the fridge to tune up simple foods. A plate of fresh fruit, a scoop of ice cream or a store-bought brownie tastes a lot more interesting when drizzled with this syrup. It’s also pretty good on roasting chicken, lamb and especially pork. Brushed on grilling ribs, or yams—it’s really fine.
This sauce, without the mint, holds for 2 days in the fridge, but should be used at room temperature. The mint goes in at the last moment to keep its bright green color and fresh taste.
At olive oil making time in the Abruzzo and Molise regions of Italy, lemons are often added to the last pressing to clean and freshen the press for the next season. The resulting oil, called limonato, is an intense olive oil redolent with lemon. Since the real thing is so expensive, I make my own version by pounding lemon zest in a mortar with gutsy olive oil.