cannenelli bean salad with chorizo and mint pesto

So you've invested in the chorizo for the scallops português, and now you have leftover links sitting in your freezer that you're afraid you'll never use. Not to worry, your money and the tasty chorizo have not gone to waste. Defrost one chorizo link immediately and let's get cooking.

I saw a version of this recipe on Food & Wine as white bean and chorizo salad with olives. My recipe uses cannenelli beans, the leftover chorizo from your scallops, asparagus, and mint.

I decided to try making a mint pesto, the freshness of which I thought would be a great contrast to the spicy chorizo. My first attempt at making the pesto was a disaster: I chopped mint, olive oil, walnuts, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper using my Cuisinart, and it came out tasting like the bastard child version of basil pesto. The olive oil was too overpowering for the delicate flavor of mint, and the cheese and nuts completely obliterated any discernible mint taste. The pesto came out white from the cheese and the nuts and from over-processing the mint leaves. My second attempt was better: I used a bit of water, walnut oil, salt and pepper. The result was better; as I suspected, the sparse use of mild walnut oil was less pungent than olive oil, and the water helped to make it more into a paste. I also didn't chop it in the Cuisinart for long, just enough to chop the leaves finely, and then I finished the mixing by hand. This time, the mint was more flavorful, but it still was not quite right. I succeeded in my third attempt when I minced the mint by hand, then mixed it in a bowl with walnut oil and water again by hand, adding a pinch of salt (no pepper) to enhance the taste, and (secret ingredient!) a hint of lemon rind for freshness. More rustic, more minty.

It seems to me that mint is a very delicate, self-effacing little herb that is brilliant on its own, but doesn't mix so well in a crowd. However, by using this more rustic, hand-made preparation, the fresh mint succeeded in providing a tasty contrast to the rich beans and chorizo. Served either cold or hot, this dish works in all seasons.

And see? You used your chorizo again.


CANNENELLI BEAN SALAD WITH CHORIZO AND MINT PESTO

Serves 4 as a side


For the mint pesto:

2 c packed, fresh mint leaves
Water
Walnut Oil (or another mild oil, i.e. canola oil, almond oil)
Lemon rind
Salt
(all to taste)

For the beans:

1 small, thumb-sized shallot
2 large cloves garlic, crushed
1 link spicy Chorizo
4 (or more) Asparagus stalks
1 can (about 2 c) Cannenelli beans, rinsed completely
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper, to taste


Rinse mint, and dry by rolling in paper towel. Mince leaves into fine pieces. Be careful not to overwork. Transfer mint to a small bowl, mix with walnut oil and water, just enough of both to create a manageable paste. Grate in a pinch of lemon rind, toss in a pinch of salt, to taste. Set aside.

Cut the link of chorizo into bite-sized pieces. Set aside. (If using uncooked chorizo, the interior will crumble when you cut it. To avoid messy meat, you may want to roast chorizo in the oven at 400◦ Fahrenheit until link is firm and mostly cooked, about 20-30mins. Once chorizo is firm on the inside, it will cut neatly and easily.)

Bring water to a boil in a small pot. Salt water, add asparagus stalks and blanch until just tender, about 1 minute. Strain and immediately rinse in cold water. Cut stalks into bite-sized pieces, angling each cut on the bias. Set aside.

Heat a medium-sized sauce pan on medium heat. While pan is heating, remove skin from shallot. Cut shallot in half, lengthwise, set aside. When pan is hot, add olive oil to pan, enough to cover bottom. Returning to the shallot, use your fingers to peel it apart, and toss in whole pieces to the pan as you go along. (This preparation will lend an onion flavor to the dish without leaving behind fibers of onion that would distract from the simplicity of the dish.) Add garlic, reduce to medium heat. Cook until shallot pieces become transparent. Add chorizo and asparagus, and sauté until they brown.

For a hot dish, add beans directly to pan. Add about 1/3 cup water or chicken stock, and turn down to a simmer. When liquid is mostly evaporated or thickened, turn off heat. Remove pieces of shallot and garlic, discard. Transfer beans to a large mixing bowl, and toss with mint pesto. Add spoonfuls of mint pesto to your taste. Serve warm.

For a cold dish, turn off heat in pan and remove pieces of shallot and garlic. Transfer chorizo to a large mixing bowl, add beans. Toss with mint pesto. Serve with a garnish of mint.

fava bean salad with mesculin greens

I have a particular aversion to leftovers. After putting so much effort and love into the original dish, I feel as though there is no way that leftovers can compete with taste memory. I'd rather let leftovers wilt into a nutrition-less mess in the trash can than re-heat and re-eat.

But honestly -- can I really afford to throw out food? No. Moreover, I feel ethically responsible to eat all of the food I purchase, not only for economic reasons, but for environmental reasons as well. After reading an article in New York Magazine about subsistence farming in Brooklyn, I became extremely conscious of the incredible amount of effort and resources it takes to grow, say, one pod of fava beans. Throwing away food is more of a waste than you may realize.

So to discard leftovers is, for me, a truly ethical dilemma. On one hand, I loathe the idea of eating food that has lost its nutritional value and taste from both the elapse of time and re-heating. Yet on the other hand, I lack the peace of conscience to throw away perfectly good food. The solution? One can begin by making smaller quantities from the outset. Otherwise, you can follow Darren Darlin's advice on saving money and make enough of a meal to take as a brown-bag lunch the next day. Not only will your conscience feel great about saving money and the future of food, but you will also become the envy of the office.

The trick is that you need to refresh your leftovers with new ingredients. Here's a simple example of how to do turn last night's side dish into this afternoon's lunch.


FAVA BEAN SALAD WITH MESCULIN GREENS

Serves one very happy employee

Leftover Fava Bean Salad
Half a dozen fresh grape tomatoes, cut in half
Fresh parsley leaves

Mesculin greens

Feta cheese, optional


Re-using the storage container in which you have refrigerated your fava bean salad, toss in grape tomatoes and some more fresh parsley leaves to the leftovers. Re-seal container and plop in your lunch box.

In a separate container large enough to serve the salad bowl from which you will eat, add a handful of mesculin greens. Seal container and add to lunch box.

Cut off a portion of feta cheese, and put it in yet another container or plastic bag to go in the lunch box.

At the office, remove containers. Top mesculin greens with leftover refreshed fava bean salad. Crumble feta cheese on top. Bring to conference room, kitchen, or your cubicle. Revel in your co-workers' compliments -- and don't forget to tell them about that it came from the gourmet dinner you had last night.

scallops português and spring fava bean salad

Sunday at Whole Foods is madness and mayhem. But for me (if I'm in the right mood), it's a form of meditation. I spent an hour shopping today, selecting a bunch of bananas with the perfect green-to-yellow ratio, slowly peeling back the husks on ears of corn, and sniffing through the plastic wrap of cheeses. Even when the enormous woman with the "WHERE'S MY ORGANIC COOKIES?!?" bug-eyes almost ran me over with her cart, I wasn't unnerved; I was far too enraptured by the lazy mood of the warm Sunday afternoon, and far too inspired by the food around me as the perfect dinner took shape in my mind.

May is "Explore Portugal" month at Whole Foods. Lucky for me, I don't need to explore it; I am Portugal (well, half-Portuguese, at least). Portuguese ingredients like chorizo, seafood, olive oil and sardines are part of my regular diet. I grew up on Portutalian meals made by my mother, whose self-taught cooking was always a spectacular gourmet amalgamation of my parents ethnicities, Italian and Portuguese. My Portuguese grandmother, however, was more of a purist; her signature dish was a very simple and delicious chicken and saffron rice. If she really persisted, she was allowed to make the delicious croquetas de bacalao that the made the whole house stink of salted cod (which freaked out my father). Her masterpiece however was rice pudding, which she made by the batch in a dozen little ramekins. We used to all hang around the kitchen, smelling the sweet, creamy rice cooking on the stove and eagerly waiting for her to serve it piping hot. We would eat a serving for breakfast, snacks, and for dessert at both lunch and dinner until the batch was gone. More often than not, we'd eat it cold, straight out of the fridge, without bothering to even re-heat it. If we were really lucky (read: obedient children), she'd whip up another batch and the rice pudding feast would commence again.

Last night I was feeling a bit nostalgic for family, my loved one, and my dear Nona (no longer here), so I decided to make myself a Portuguese dinner. My mother would have loved it, but my Nona would have called it decadent. I call it delicious, and worth the bit of a splurge for ingredients.

The Scallops Português are made using two Portuguese specialty ingredients: scallops and chorizo. At Whole Foods, I bought 1/4 lb (4 scallops) fresh scallops, which came out to just over $5. You can buy a whole bag of frozen scallops for $14.99 at Whole Foods, or for $10 at Trader Joe's. The chorizo cost $4.99 for five links. You can buy chorizo fresh or dried; if you buy it fresh, you can freeze the leftovers and then thaw them to use in a variety of dishes. Trader Joe's makes a great chicken chorizo for those of you who don't like pork. The Spring Fava Bean Salad makes use of this delightful seasonal vegetable, and is a nice way to cool off the heavy and spicy sauce of the scallops. I bought some fresh olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods, so I poured a bit of the briney juice into the salad, which gave it a really unique flavor.

Overall, the cost for ingredients in this dish is a bit more expensive than the rice and beans recipe. But the scallops are worth the price, just as the chorizo is a great thing to have in the house to add an extra dimension to just about any dish. You'll see.


SCALLOPS PORTUGUÊS and SPRING FAVA BEAN SALAD

Serves 4


For the Fava Bean Salad:

6 pods Fava Beans
1 handful String Beans
1/2 cup fresh Fennel, sliced thinly
1/4 cup chopped scallions or spring onion
1/4 cup fresh Parsley leaves
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Water from Olives
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper

For the Scallops:

1 link Chorizo
1 small shallot
1/4 c Red Wine (from the Portuguese wine you'll be drinking with dinner, i.e. Duoro or Ribatejo)
4 Large (Diver) Scallops
1/4 tsp minced Parsley
1/3 tsp Brown Sugar
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper


Extract the fava beans by using your fingernails to pry open the thick pod around to the large beans. Remove the beans and set them aside. Rinse string beans, and cut them in half.

Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil. Salt the water, add the fava beans. Cook for 1 minute, add string beans, and cook until string beans are just tender, not rubbery and overcooked, about 2 minutes max. Strain completely and immediately rinse with cold water to preserve color and to arrest cooking.

Slice fennel into paper-thin crescent shapes. Toss together in a serving bowl with beans and parsley leaves, lemon juice, olive water, a drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper. Set aside.

Remove outer skin from shallot. Slice shallot into thin circles. Set aside. Cut chorizo into thin slices or chunky dice pieces. Set aside.

Heat a small sauté pan. Add olive oil just to grease pan, add shallot and chorizo together. Sauté until chorizo is cooked and shallots start to brown. Add wine, bringing to a boil. Turn down heat to simmer and reduce until wine becomes a thick sauce. To reduce the potency of the flavor, add some chicken stock or water, and a touch of sugar or honey for sweetness. Add salt and pepper to taste.

While sauce is reducing, pour a small circle of olive oil on a small dish. Add minced parsley, brown sugar, salt and pepper to make a rub. Dip or rub both flat sides of the scallops in the rub. Set them aside. Heat a sauté pan on high heat to make it very hot. Add a drizzle of olive oil to grease pan, then place scallops in pan on one of the seasoned sides. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then turn over to other side, about 1-2 minutes. If scallops are still undercooked, turn off heat and cover with a lid for another 3o seconds to 1 minute.

To plate, arrange scallops on plate with a serving of bean salad and some rice. Spoon a bit of chorizo and shallot on top of scallops and drizzle the wine reduction sauce on top and around dish. Serve immediately.

the perfect pantry

Spice table at Saxe-Breteuil market in Paris, 2005

The one thing that distinguishes a frugal gourmet from the rest of the hungry masses is a well-stocked pantry. Having a pantry full of ingredients, rather than snacks, paves the way for culinary innovation under any budget. The perfect pantry is an investment, and may initially cost a bit more than your regular trip to the grocery store. But once your pantry is stocked, your weekly grocery bills will decline, and the majority of your spending will be on fresh, seasonal produce, which is not only fresh and nutritious, but inexpensive.

As Michael Pollan writes in his book, In Defense of Food (Penguin Press, 2007): "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." This dietary trope has become an increasingly popular credo for cooks and eaters who are becoming more conscious of the importance of knowing the origins of their food. According to Pollan, a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, grains and the occasional animal protein, feeds the human body as it was meant to be fed, with food food, not cellophane-wrapped synthetics.

The additional benefit to this earthy way of eating is that it costs comparatively less. Anything that comes in a box can be sold at a higher price point than things that come in crates. Consider this: not only are you paying for the producer's name-brand label on the box, but you're also paying for the cost of packaging materials. So if you're trying to "make ends meat" and your shopping cart is regularly filled with grocery items instead of things from the produce section, try the following experiment. Take note of how much you spend on a regular grocery trip. Sometime in between shopping trips, go shopping for the items to put together The Perfect Pantry. Next shopping trip, only visit the produce, meat, and dairy sections (according to your taste). These items will become the main focus of your dishes, and your perfect pantry will supplement each meal. You'll see that your grocery bill will be significantly lower. Just remember that the items from your pantry trip are an investment, which in the long run cost you nothing. In economic terms, this is your deadweight loss, which ultimately is your culinary gain.

So what to buy for the perfect pantry? I've divided the contents of the pantry into seven groups: Grains, Legumes, Flours, Canned Goods and Butters, Nuts and Dried Fruit, Oils and Vinegars, and importantly, Spices. These will provide the backbone to any dish, allowing you to be creative with your fresh ingredients.

Here is a starter grocery list of my favorite and trusty items that will transform your snack cupboard into a chef's stockroom.


THE PERFECT PANTRY

Grains

• Bulgur
• Couscous
• Rice
  
• Farro
• Quinoa
• Oats
  
• Pasta (a box or more each of long form pasta, ribbon pasta, and tubular pasta)*

Legumes (canned or dried)

• Chick peas
• Cannenelli beans
• Black / pinto / butter beans
• Lentils
  

Flours

• Unbleached white flour
• Whole wheat flour
• Whole wheat / unbleached white pastry flour

Canned Goods and Butters

• San Marzano peeled tomatoes (look at cans to be sure that the variety is San Marzano)
  
• Tomato paste
• Capers
  
• A nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, etc)
• Tahini (sesame butter)

Nuts and Dried Fruit

• Raw Walnuts
• Raw Almonds
• Pignoli (pine) nuts (can be quite expensive)
  
• A variety of seed, like pumpkin
• Raisins / currants

Oils and Vinegars

• Olive oil (for cooking)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Sesame Oil
• Nut oil (i.e., pumpkin seed oil, walnut oil)
• Balsamic vinegar
• White wine / champagne vinegar
• Rice wine vinegar

Spices**

• Peppercorns (use only freshly ground pepper)
• Salt (kosher salt for cooking, and a sea salt variety in a grinder for flavoring)
  
• Cumin
• Cinnamon
• Bay Leaves
• Chili powder
• Nutmeg
• Saffron
  
• Curry powder and/or Garam Masala
• Coriander
• Mustard
• Tumeric
• Dried oregano
• Dried rosemary
• Dried thyme
  

*Alternatively, you can make your own delicious, inexpensive, homemade pasta using the flour from your pantry if you have a pasta machine.

** Instead of wasting your money and your potential for flavor on dried herbs, garlic power, onion power, and powdered ginger, buy these ingredients fresh, when available. However, if the availability of fresh herbs is scarce, dried herbs are just fine, such as the ones I've suggested. Try to avoid buying dried leafy herbs, such as basil, cilantro, and parsley, as they dramatically lose their flavor and utility when dried.