Lara Ferroni » Other

GobbledyBook

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:00:47 +0000

I guess it must have been a couple of years ago, I had a crazy thought to build a website to help me start actually using my cookbooks. The point of the site would be to let people create a simple catalog of the cookbooks that they own to help them search through the recipes in those books. Anyone using the site could enter the recipes from one of their cookbooks and then be able to search it from then on out. The scale of the web would mean with enough users, each person would really only need to spend time entering one or two of their own cookbooks, and before long, there would be a very good sized catalog. Or, if all of that failed, at least I’d have a site that I could enter my books and search them.

So, in fits and starts, I eventually built it. It’s called GobbledyBook, and it’s free for anyone to use. I’ve kept kind of quiet about it because, to date, just about the only person who has used it has been me and it’s always a little nerve wracking to have other people start playing with your baby.

I’ve used it quite a bit already. In fact, I’ve entered over 4,500 recipes in more than 40 of my cookbooks. And even though that is only a small part of my cookbook library (yes, I am one of those freaks), it’s already come in handy to help me find the right recipe and actually cook from my cookbooks! Woo Hoo!

The basic scenario is pretty simple. Say, I want to make some bread pudding. I know I have a lot of bread pudding recipes in my cookbooks, but which ones? I’m sure that Donna Hay has a recipe, but I own 6 of her books. With GobbledyBook, I can simply type bread pudding into the search box, and it shows me 26 recipes out of my cookbooks and what page the recipe is on (Donna Hay has a Marmalade Bread and Butter pudding in Modern Classic Vol. 2, page 146, by the way). You can also see a full list of ingredients for the recipe as well as comments. (To actually cook the recipe, you have to go to the cookbook… I’m not trying to steal from cookbooks, just make them easier to use).

Or, maybe I need to bring something gluten free to a pot luck? I can browse all gluten free recipes, and then narrow down the selection by what ingredients I have or the type of food I like to cook, like Italian. I can limit the search to just cookbooks I own, or any cookbook that has been indexed. Then, I just go grab the book off of the shelf (or order it from Powell’s or Amazon!) and get cooking.

It’s also been wonderful for helping me figure out what to do with the ingredients in my market basket each week. Once I get tired of my old standards, I just plug in a couple of ingredients and see what other dishes I can make. Like, for example, this Swiss Chard Frittata that I made for lunch today.

Actually, this is a combination of two recipes… a basic baked frittata and a swiss chard tart recipe from Sunday Suppers at Luques. I didn’t quite have all the right ingredients for the tart, but I did have (most of) the makings for the pine nut relish that tops it. So, keeping with the basic seasonings of the tart, I skipped the crust, bumped up the egg and turned it into a lovely (and gluten free) lunch treat (recipe below!)

Anyway, back to Gobbleybook. As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one with the problem of using their cookbooks, or the idea to solve it. Late last year, another site launched called Eat Your Books. With a slightly bigger staff (than my 1, so anything is bigger!) and interns helping out with the data entry, their catalog is significantly bigger already. Good for them! I’m sure if I hadn’t spent the last couple of years building my own site, I would totally sign up.

There are some differences between GobbledyBook and Eat Your Books though. First and foremost, GobbledyBook will let you catalog your own books, so you don’t have to wait for someone else to add your book. You can just do it yourself (and you’ll most likely find a few great recipes to bookmark along the way… I know I have).

GobbledyBook is also free to use. There are no sign up fees or subscriptions fees, and it is my intention to keep it that way. You sign in with your Facebook account, and you are good to go.

GobbledyBook also lets you enter the data the way you want to and the way the recipe is written. If the recipe calls for spring onions, you enter spring onions. Behind the scenes, we’ll match up ingredients that are the same (so if you search for scallion, you’ll see recipes for green onions as well. Search for soup and you’ll see recipes that are bisques). I’ve had numerous searches on Eat Your Books fail because I didn’t use quite the right search term.

So, if you find yourself wanting to make your cookbook library a little easier to use, I hope you’ll give GobbledyBook a try and enter a cookbook or two. To entice you a bit more, I’m giving away a $50 gift certificate to your choice of Powell’s or Amazon to the first person to catalog 500 recipes!

PS: GobbledyBook is a labor of love. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any “real” software development, so you may, at times, find a glitch or two. If you do, I hope that you let me knows so I can keep making the site better!

Baked Swiss Chard Frittata with Pine Nut Relish

Makes 2 individual sized frittatas

Relish

1/3 cup pine nuts
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 sprig rosemary
1 dried red chile
1/3 cup red onion, diced
1/3 cup raisins or currants
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh chervil or flat leaf parsley
red chile flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Frittata

3 large chard leaves (or other braising greens)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1/8 cup red onion, diced
4 extra large eggs
1/4 cup creme fraiche
1/4 cup cream
black pepper
chives

First, make the relish. Lightly toast the pine nuts until they start smelling very nutty. I use a small skillet on the stovetop to do this, but you can also do it in the oven. When they show golden spots on them, remove from heat, and set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a small skillet and add the rosemary and chile until they start to sizzle. Add the diced onion, raisins and a pinch of salt, and reduce heat to low. Slowly cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions have softened. Remove from the skillet, discard the chile and rosemary, and set aside.

Using the same skillet, add the balsamic vinegar and heat over medium low until the vinegar reduces to about 1 tablespoon and becomes syrupy. Add this to the onion mixture, and stir to combine. Then, mix in the pine nuts, chervil, a pinch of red chile flakes (if desired). Season to taste. Set aside for the flavors to meld.

To make the frittata, lightly grease two mini cocottes and preheat the oven to 350F.

Remove the thicker stems from the chard and tear the leaves into smallish pieces. Chop the stems into half moons (like you would celery). Heat a small skillet with olive oil and the thyme leaves. When hot, add the chopped chard stems and red onion. Reduce heat to low and cook until the onion softens. Add the chard leaves and cook until they become wilted. Divide between the cocottes.

Whisk the eggs, creme fraiche, cream and a grind or two of black pepper in a medium sized bowl until well combined. Pour this mixture over the chard in the cocottes, filling each about 3/4 full. Garnish with a bit of chive if desired.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the mixture sets and puffs up. Then, switch to the broiler and cook 1 to 2 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.

Serve immediately (they will quickly deflate), topped with the pine nut relish.

Season's Greetings

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:56:08 +0000

Escape Velocity

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:18:21 +0000

I got kind of used to watching three episodes of Bones everyday, curled up with my laptop, polishing up my manuscript (due Sunday!), catching up on everyone’s blogs, and trying to keep up with Twitter (impossible, even when couch bound). A few recent jobs have helped me gain breakaway speed, including a great trip to Vancouver to shoot at 5 different bars (more on that when the article hits the shelves).

This week, I made it back into the kitchen and started to feel that old rhythm kicking in again. First, a few remaining doughnut tests (Red Velvet Cake, Brandy Eggnog, and playing around with Chia flour for a gluten free variation). And then, yesterday, roasted parsnips.

The first time I remember having a parsnip was at some fancy-schmancy restaurant that served probably the best monkfish I’ve ever had. (This was long ago, in the days before fish-lists or much awareness of what was happening in our waters.) Tucked underneath the fish was this beautifully creamed, what I thought was, potato. In fact it was creamed parsnip, and I nearly spit it across the table. I was not in anyway prepared for that earthy sweetness, and thought it was the most horrible thing I had ever had. Perhaps it was just the misplaced expectation or perhaps it wasn’t well prepared (I seem to recall, it was kind of grainy). But I swore off parsnips then and there.

What a huge mistake. Somewhere along the way, a parsnip sneaked its way onto my plate at a friend’s house and it was a revelation. This wasn’t some mealy, sickly sweet babyfood. It was caramel and banana and potato wrapped into one; crisp on the outside, melty on the inside goodness. Now, I can never seem to get enough of them. Yesterday, I roasted up 6 or 7 good sized roots sprinkled with a little vanilla bean salt and a splatter of olive oil, and gobbled them all down for lunch. Today, I’m tempted to do the same.

(PS: Thanks to Stephanie over at Wasabimon for the spotlight! )

Vanilla Roasted Parsnips

I roasted my parsnips whole, which gives a greater ratio of soft to crisp. If you prefer your parsnips caramelized on all sides, you can half or quarter them before roasting.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Line a baking sheet with foil, and place whole, peeled parsnips on top. Splash with a good olive oil, and sprinkle with vanilla salt and a bit of cracked pepper. Cover with more foil, and roast for about 20 minutes. Turn the parsnips over (they should be golden on the bottom by this point). Recover and roast another 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven, and cut off the tops and tails. Slice in half (or quarters if they are particularly large) lengthwise. Drizzle on a bit more olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

In The Kitchen

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:00:36 +0000

What I really love about this syrup (or really, any herbal simple syrup) is how many different things you can do with it. Add a little to something fizzy, citrusy and if you are so inclined, boozy, and you have the perfect drink too cool you down on a day like today (Ginger shiso mojitos anyone?). Or, stir some into a fruit puree, freeze and you have a remarkable sorbet. Or, if you kitchen isn’t hot enough to bake without the use of an oven, try it drizzle over some fruit on a pound cake. Ooo, mama.

For these recipe, head on over to Design Sponge. And for even more summery herby recipes, check out Summer Fest!

All I want to eat

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:59:38 +0000

I plucked my first radishes from the ground this morning. Oh my. I have never grown radishes before and now I am wondering why. They pop up out of warm soil almost as soon as you plant them. I think if I sat there for an hour or two, I could see them growing.

The teeny-tiny strawberries and chive flowers are from the garden too… and soon there will be peas!

Until then though, my weekly produce delivery is starting to come to life. This week included local organic basil and some beautiful crook neck yellow squash and a recipe for that quiche pictured above. I’ll post my version of it tomorrow. But I wanted to go ahead and share my radishes with you all today!

Serious about Yogurt

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:40:14 +0000

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely holiday. I certainly did. It was fun, relaxing and very, very over indulgent. As many good holidays often are.

So, like many people out there, I have started the new year with a few new inspirations. The first, to go along with counteracting some of that seasonal indulgence, is to get serious about yogurt. It’s such a fantastic snack, and I’m hoping it will actually get me to eat breakfast and lunch and keep me from mindlessly eating throughout the day.

As a first step, I bought a Euro Cuisine YM100 Automatic Yogurt Maker. I’ve made yogurt once before with some success using nothing more than a cooler and a heating pad. But, that setup was pretty sketchy at best, and $40 for a yogurt maker that comes with 7 glass jars is a good deal. I love the idea of having yogurt around most of the time for cooking or just eating, and not piling up more plastic containers.

I also like the idea of getting exactly the texture of yogurt that I want. That means starting with good cultures and using the right kind of milk. But, as a newbie to this whole yogurt making thing, I really wasn’t sure what texture I really wanted or what milk would give it to me. So, I yesterday, I played mad scientist and made up 5 little cups of yogurt with 5 different milks: Skim (what I usually drink), raw whole milk, pasteurized goats milk, vanilla soy milk and just because I had some that needed to be used, heavy cream. For a starter, I used Total 0%. (I usually prefer their full fat version, but since this was just for a starter, I went skim).

After adding about a tablespoon of yogurt to each 6 ounces of milk, and giving it a good stir, I set the jars in to warm for about 10 hours. Milks with higher fat content will firm up more quickly than skim, and I found that the soy milk firmed up even faster. With such different fat contents, it’s not surprising that the yogurts all turned out quite differently.

The skim milk yogurt was my least favorite of the bunch. That’s not all that surprising, although if you had asked me, I would have said the soy since I have an aversion to soy milk in general. The skim yogurt was fine actually. Although a little too sour and a bit chalky, the biggest problem was that it was watery. By draining it in a sieve or in some cheese cloth, I could get rid of the watery texture. Most yogurt recipes you read recommend adding some powdered milk to the mix if you are using skim milk to make your yogurt for this very reason.

The raw milk yogurt had a nice bright flavor and creamy texture, although still a bit on the chalky side. Since raw milk isn’t homogenized, I found that the yogurt was not really homogenized either and developed its own yogurt “cream top” which was fairly easily mixed in.

The goat’s milk is a bit of a puzzle to me. Flavor-wise, it’s the clear winner. It’s kind of zesty without being sour. It’s super smooth with no chalkiness. But, it also didn’t firm up much at all. It’s thick, but almost glue like in texture. Mixed in with some granola and preserves, it will make a fine snack, but I’m going to have to play around more with timing to get it to be a bit more firm.

The biggest surprise to me was the soy milk. I pretty much despise the stuff, but wanted to give it a try anyway. I bought the Silk vanillla soy milk which is lightly sweetened. According to the machine’s manuel, you need to use a sweetened soy milk if you want the cultures to develop. And, develop they did. This was the quickest yogurt to make and I honestly don’t think I’d know it was soy if I was blind taste testing it. But, it’s also presweetened and I prefer using a plain yogurt and mixing in my own flavors.

Finally, the crazy prize goes to the cream. I’m not exactly sure what I created with this, but I have to tell you, it’s fantastic. It’s like butter meets cream cheese meets clotted cream. Spread it on a bagel, and oh my. I won’t be making it every week, but it will be made again.

Of course, there are still other milks to try, but my next trials will be all about the goats milk and figuring out what I need to do to get it just a touch thicker. In the meantime, I’ll be stirring in spoonfuls of a Seville Marmalade (recipe from Clotilde in the January issue of Martha Stewart... it’s fantastic!).

Wishing you…

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:21:40 +0000

Happy Holidays!

I had visions of posting all 4 of the Christmas treat recipes I made this year (three different cookies from Saveur and some amazing chocolate caramels with sea salt from Pictures & Pancakes), along with the two pies, fingerling potatoes, roast beef (with yorkshire puddings) and brussel sprouts. Instead, I’m going to kick back and put my feet up and enjoy the fire. I hope you’ve all had a lovely Christmas Day and best wishes for the years end.

I also wanted to remind you that if you haven’t checked out Menu for Hope V yet, there is still time! The auction date has been extended to December 31st.

Peace be with you all!
-L

Two Tacos Please

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:20:30 +0000

There has been a scheme in the works for some time now to have a day devoted to tacos. We’ve (Cam and I) been sampling various trucks and busses one by one for the past year, but never on a particularly organized basis and it became too hard to decide which one was really the best. Memories quickly fade, and we just end up with vague recollections of what we did or didn’t like. This would not do. We needed hard data to compare and contrast all the tacoy goodness. So, we decided that we’d pick a beautiful sunny day, and just drive around, trying tacos at the various Seattle taco trucks, to try to decide on an ultimate winner of Seattle’s Best Taco. Saturday, October 11th turned out to be that day.

After a morning of planning to find all of the taco trucks online that I could, and organizing a set of directions to most efficiently get us from spot to spot, we picked our targets and headed out. Of the 27 trucks I plotted, we’d try to go to 8 or 9 of them, ordering one carne asada and one al pastor taco at each, and splitting each of them. We were allowed sides but given the number of stops we had ahead of us, we were just going to stick to the two taco rule, at least until the end of the day.

The first stop was our closest truck, Rancho Bravo, in Wallingford. This truck is set up in a Winchell’s doughnut shop parking lot so you can always grab a doughnut if the craving strikes you after your tacos. At $2 each, these were the most expensive tacos we tried (which isn’t surprising given the neighborhood), but they were also some of the biggest. The corn tortillas are full size (but seem store bought), and well filled. The tacos have sliced, fresh radishes in addition to cilantro, onion and lime, and the salsa they have on the table are quite good. I like the salsa verte which has a bit of a kick.

Next, it was over to El Asadero, which seems to be a Seattle favorite. First off, there is something about having tacos sitting on the little stools inside this old school taco bus that really completes the taco eating experience. They also have great pickled carrots and peppers. The tacos ($1.20 plus tax each) are good. They are the usual small, double tortilla shells which seem to be housemade. The meat is good and juicy, with lots of flavor. Cam thought they were a bit heavy on the onion.

We kept heading down Rainier, hoping to find Taqueria Dos Hermanos, but it wasn’t around, so may have either moved or gone out of business. A few blocks further south, we found Los Potrillos, a small truck parked in a gas station parking lot. These tacos ($1.10 each) were drippy juicy with lots of diced meat and salsa. I wished for a bit more cilantro, but the onion balance was nice.

Next up was perhaps my favorite stop of the day, Costa Alegre. This old metro bus (complete with the old Priority Seating window stickers) is decked out with bright red, rodeo-inspired curtains, tables and chairs. It’s red overload, but quite comfortable and feels very homey. The folks that run it are lovely. You even get to eat on real plates! Our tacos ($1.25 each) were super hot and fresh, with a good balance of cilantro (ie: lots), onion and meat with good red and green salsa to add yourself. They also had some sort of non-alcoholic sangria, but we passed on that.

We’re not really sure what the next taco truck was called. The menus all said Tacos Maria, but the truck itself said Tacos Patzcuaro. This truck, parked on someone’s front lawn on MLK Blvd, is going to get swamped when the light rail system is in right across the street. For now, it kept a stead pace of taco eaters happy with its small taco shells heavily loaded with meat and a pile of caramelized onions on the side ($1.25 each). The salsa verde here is a bit on the sweet side and the red is quite hot. It was about this time that I was starting to get pretty worried about how I was going to finish this crazy taco eating extravaganza. We were on truck #5, with 3 more planned to go. The radishes were no longer going to be eaten.

We had made it through all the Rainier trucks we had planned, so then it was off to South Park for a couple of well known stops. El Rincon (which has several different trucks around) on 14th was first. This truck had a line the whole time we were there waiting for it’s super juicy $1.10 tacos. The pork bordered on greasy, but in a lick your fingers clean kind of way. These had just the right balance of cilantro and onion to meat. They came with pickled carrots in addition to radishes and lime, but I was not a fan of them. And, oh god, there are still 2 more stops to go….

Further up the street in South Park is Muy Macho, which used to be a taco truck, but now has a permanent restaurant. Despite lots of seating, we decided to get ours to go to keep with the taco truck theme, so we ate them in the car. Muy Macho probably has the most interesting and best salsa of any of our stops, but on our visit, both the pork and the beef were too dry and kind of unpleasant. They were the cheapest of the day though, coming in at a very odd $1.095 each (how they charge a half-cent we couldn’t quite figure out).

We had one more stop to go. A mystery truck that was supposed to be located in the parking lot of the 76 gas station in Georgetown. At that point, I thought I was going to explode and I was seriously not looking forward to trying yet another taco. I had definitely hit my limit. Seven tacos is too many tacos. As we pulled into the 76, and looked around, I think I gave a little scream of delight. The mystery truck was nowhere to be seen. We were done. Whew.

Instead, we stopped into All City Coffee for a late afternoon mocha as a digestive and shared a cupcake Cam had made earlier in the day at the Edible Seattle event at Metropolitan Market. As we reviewed our carefully taken notes from the day, and I whined about too many tacos, we mulled over who would win the Seattle’s best taco award. The end result? It’s whatever taco truck happens to be closest to you. I won’t go so far to say that they are all the same. But, they are all good enough when the taco craving strikes.

Of course, we still have that whole north Seattle taco loop to do, and haven’t even touched the eastside or the deep south yet. Once I can actually think about tacos again, I’m sure we’ll find another sunshiney day and head out…

A few Seattle taco truck resources:

L’s Taco Truck Google map
Married with Dinner’s Seattle Taco Crawl
NWSource’s Taco Truck Guide
Yelp’s taco truck picks
Los Taco Trucks Seattle
Seattle Taco
Chowhound Seattle Taco Truck thread
Seattle Weekly Taco Truck investigation

A Little R & R at The Inn at Langley

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:05:57 +0000

Do you ever feel just stupidly lucky? I do. All. The. Time. I’m not really sure what I’ve done to deserve all the amazing good fortune I’ve had. So, when my friend Nathan called me up a month or so and asked if I’d be interested in doing a bit of photography work in trade for a weekend at The Inn at Langley, I got to experience yet another one of those moments, and sent a big Thank You to the powers of the universe. The Inn at Langley is very high up there on one of my favorite places in the Northwest. The town of Langley, on Whidbey Island, manages to hit all the quaint buttons without actually turning sickeningly sweet. There’s a good coffee shop packed with as many locals as tourists, a natural food store that you can poke around in for hours, two weekly farmers markets within a stones throw, and a thrift store perfect for cheap-os like me who aren’t into paying antique store prices. But when I think of Langley, I think of The Inn.

It was just over two years ago that I first experienced one of Matt Costello’s seasonal dinners. Matt is the General Manager of The Inn, but most people know more about his kitchen prowess. The Inn does 3 (sometimes 4) single seating, prix fixe dinners a week. Everyone sits down and eats the same thing (dietary restrictions of course are respected) at the same time. Matt starts each dinner with a brief introduction about the area, the producers, and which seasonal ingredients went into the nights courses… sometimes including things he’s foraged himself or that are brought in from the herb garden.

Then, the work begins. The open kitchen gives all the diners a chance to see all the action while dinner is prepared.

There’s never a pause in the work, but somehow the atmosphere remains calm. And, well, it’s easy to get distracted away from the busyness as the plates arrive at the table. Each dish starts as a visual treat, which quickly turns to so much more. Your spoon brings a translucent corn broth or an icy fresh strawberry sorbet to your mouth, and the flavors unravel. Words simply can’t do it justice… so here are a few more shots to help you see what I mean.

Could anything be more stunning than that crystal clear corn broth with fresh Dungeness crab and sage blossoms? Well, maybe these:

The meal is reason enough to visit The Inn, but then, so are the tranquil waterfront and forest views.

So, a big thank you to Nathan and Matt for such an enjoyable visit, and the universe for bringing such good fortune my way. Hope you all enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed my weekend!

Cooking with Gas

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:04:15 +0000

Last week, I got the range of my dreams. I’ve been pining away for a commercialesque gas range now for about as long as I can remember. Some people dream about their wedding dress or owning a fancy car. I dream about cooking with gas. I have pretty much always made do with a simple electric range… there was that one span in college when the apartment came with a old, white enamel gas stove from the 50s which put out about as much heat as a few votive candles huddled together for warmth. I’ve managed to cook up some pretty amazing stuff with the electrics too. But always there was a longing for something industrial and packed with BTUs. In April, we had natural gas run to the house. We were just doing the furnace (which like many older Seattle homes was still running on oil). The stove would have to wait. Then, work picked up, and suddenly Cam and I decided, hey… let’s just bite the bullet and get the stove. At long last, my stove was coming home.

Of course, nothing is all that simple. To begin with, I had to figure out what stove I wanted. It became pretty clear to me pretty quickly that the Viking I had been envisioning was not a great choice. Although fit and finishwise, they are gorgeous machines, even a little bit of digging and you’ll soon see that they tend to be ultra prone with problems. That research lead me to Wolf and DCS, which subsequently lead me to a company called Bluestar. Although not available (at least at the moment) in the dual-fuel version I was hoping for, everyone who had a Bluestar was in love. To start with, they are one of the least expensive high-end ranges you can get, and have the most powerful cooktop, with a blazing 22,000 BTUs. I was pretty sold, until I went and looked at one that is. Cool and industrial, definitely… but the fit and finish started to scare me. The oven didn’t feel like it closed quite tightly enough and had some sharp edges. The open burners intimidated me as I thought of my panache for boiling over. While in the store, we stumbled across the American Ranges. These ranges have a similar price point to the Bluestars, but have closed burners with an easy to clean stainless top, and the oven is the largest in its class… easily able to fit full sized commercial baking pans. The edges were smooth all around, and while the burners weren’t quite the same as the Bluestars’, 17,000 BTU seemed like plenty for me (and about the same as the Wolf, DCS and Vikings). We went home to do more research, happily finding that American Range owners are nearly as religious about their stoves as the Bluestar owners. We were sold.

To get the stove in with the necessary duct work required some semi-serious kitchen demolition that included very large holes in the ceiling, cabinets, and eventually brick work. Amazingly, thanks mostly to Cam, it all came together, and after just over a week with chaotic kitchen construction, I ended up with one kick-ass stove and some killer ventilation to boot. Of course, before I got a chance to use it, we left town.

But, finally, I’ve fired up the gas and started searing away. While my first meal on it wasn’t so much a great test (pasta and sauce on top with a zucchini gratin baking in the oven), tonight’s dinner was made for this stove. At the Pike Place market, I picked up four enormous sea scallops to sear. Just a little smoked sea salt, aleppo pepper and olive oil, one really hot frying pan and enough patience to let each side sear before touching them (this is always the hardest part). Topped with a little mango and green garlic salsa… yum.

Seared Scallops with Mango and Green Garlic Salsa

The Salsa
1 mango, 1/4 inch dice
1/2 cucumber, seeds removed, 1/4 dice
3 garlic spears, roughly chopped
1 lime
olive oil
aleppo pepper
salt

Mix the mango, cucumber and chopped garlic together. Squeeze the lime juice on top, add a splash of olive oil and stir to coat. Add a pinch of aleppo pepper and salt to taste. Cover and refrigerate for least 5 minutes.

The Scallops
4 large sea scallops
smoked sea salt
aleppo pepper
olive oil

Rinse the scallops and pat dry. Sprinkle with the salt and aleppo pepper and drizzle with olive oil.

Heat a heavy-bottom skillet over medium heat for about 2-minutes. Add enough oil to lightly coat the bottom of the pan and heat. Add the scallops to the pan leaving plenty of room between each one. Cook on one side for 2 to 3 minutes without moving them. Then, flip them over, and cook on the other side until browned. Remove the scallops from the pan and let them rest for a few minutes before serving.

Top each scallop with a healthy spoonful of the salsa.