California Barbecue Salmon

Though my hopeful plan to travel to San Francisco next week is now on hold, I'm delighted to have the chance to have a bit of Cali in my kitchen. Hannah, a new friend of mine, just went back home to San Francisco for Memorial Day weekend, and promised to send me a recipe upon her return to New York. I just found it in my emailbox, and it looks as delicious as she said it would be. Now if only I can find a way to get a grill up five flights of stairs and onto our precarious fire escape...




CALIFORNIA BARBECUE SALMON


1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1 tablespoon each honey and firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger or minced garlic
1 salmon fillet with skin (3.5 – 4.5 lb.; a 12-lb. whole salmon yields 2 about this size)
Lime slices and wedges
Whole chives (optional)

In a 6- to 8-inch frying pan over medium heat, stir butter with honey and sugar until butter melts. Remove from heat; add to pan the soy,mustard, oil, and ginger; mix well. Let sauce cool slightly.

Meanwhile, rinse fish and pat dry. To make fish easier to handle when cooked, set it, skin down, on a large piece of foil; trim foil (or fold under) to fit outline of fish. Set fish and foil in a rimmed pan large enough to hold fish. Stir sauce and spoon evenly over fish; let stand 15 minutes to 1 hour; frequently spoon sauce over fish.


Put salmon with foil on a grill over indirect heat. Cover barbecue with lid, open any vents, and cook until fish is opaque but still moist-looking in the thickest part (cut to test), 20 to 30 minutes.

To move fish onto a platter, support with 2 large spatulas, or slip a rimless baking sheet under fish. Set, or slide, fish onto a platter. Serve salmon hot or cold; if making ahead, cover and chill up to 1 day. Squeeze juice from lime wedges onto portions.

Makes 10 to 12 servings.

Grilled Pizza

A few years ago, my mother got a brand-new double oven with a pizza stone in the bottom unit. The purchase prompted a winter-long foray into the delights of homemade pizza, with seasonal ingredients for toppings, and pizza dough that was always made from scratch (and a variety of health-conscious flours). My father and mother would call me in New York to relish in their latest pizza discoveries, including ingredients like parma prociutto, fresh herbs, winter squash, Piave cheese, smoked mozzarella, and even tofu. The era of the Boboli pizza was thankfully over, but with the coming of summer heat, my mother forbid anyone from turning on the oven, and my family's obsession with artisanal pizza was halted.

That is, until Italian cuisine guru Mario Batali introduced me (not personally, though I have seen him scooting around the West Village on his sea foam green Vespa and bright orange Crocs) to the wonders of grilled pizza with his recipe for Grilled Marghertia and Olive-Fontina Pizza.

With a cool, oven-heat-free house, my family's faith in and appetite for pizza was restored. When I went home for Memorial Day weekend this year, we kicked off our summer with an old grilled favorite: Grilled Pizza with Grilled Onions, Arugula, and Goat cheese. My recipe calls for the onions to be grilled, lending a rich, smoky flavor, and a quick dough that doesn't require hours of rising time, but still retains a fluffy, doughy quality that crisps nicely when grilled.


GRILLED PIZZA WITH ONION, ARUGULA AND GOAT CHEESE


For the dough:

2 c. whole wheat flour
1 pkg. or 1 tbsp. active dry yeast
3/4 tsp. salt
1 c. warm water
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. honey

For toppings:

1 Vidalia or Spanish onion
1 handful of fresh baby Arugula
1/4 cup of Goat Cheese
Olive oil
Minced herbs
Salt & Pepper


Heat grill on high and cover to retain heat.

Pour flour into a large mixing bowl or electric mixer. Add yeast and salt, and mix well (on slow speed if using mixer). Add water, oil and honey, and mix well to incorporate into a dough. Whole wheat sometimes needs more water than white flour, so if dough seems dry, add a bit more water. Knead the dough a few times into a ball. Cover with a moist cloth and place in a warm spot for 10 minutes to rise.

Cut onion in half, cutting east-west, to reveal circular onion ring. Remove skin. Slice onion into 1/2-inch circles. Brush with olive oil or spray with cooking spray and set on grill on low heat, monitoring them carefully so that they become soft and turn brown, but not char or burn. Separate rings in a pile onto a plate.

For a delicious olive-oil pizza base, put minced herbs in a small bowl with a pinch of salt and a pepper. Add enough oil so that the mixture is 1/4 herbs and 3/4 oil. Set aside. Crumble goat cheese onto a small dish and set aside. Measure out enough arugula to cover pizza and set aside on a small dish. Put all prepared ingredients (this is called the mise en place) on a tray to take outside, where you will put the pizza together on the grill.

Before heading outside to the grill, pound and knead out dough into desired circular shape, about 1/2-inch thick. The amounts of this recipe can make two smaller, manageably-sized pizzas. Place on a board to take outside.

Take all ingredients outside to the grill, with a brush for the olive oil and a large grilling spatula to flip pizza.

Brush one side of the pizzas with olive oil and herb concoction, and place the olive oil side directly on the grill on medium heat. Brush the other side of the raw dough with oil. After about 7-10mins, or when browned and grill marks show, and flip to other side carefully. After about 5mins, brush grilled top with olive oil again. Carefully put arugula on grilled top, followed by crumbles of cheese, and then the onions, to weigh down. Close cover on grill, and let cook for another 5-7mins, or until toppings are cooked and bottom of crust is browned.

Remove pizzas and arrange on board. Cut pizza into small wedges or rectangular strips. Serve as an appetizer or as a main course with salad.

This particular pizza goes well with a light, summer wine. We had a nice Sancerre, whose melon, citrus, and mineral tones were a refreshing complement to the rich, grilled flavor of the pizza.

Buon appetito!

Wine-Roasted Peaches with Honey-Mint Yogurt Cream

I have a knack at making great friends at the very last minute before they, or I, have to leave wherever it is that I might be. This was the case with Naomi, who, after two semesters of seeing one another every week for our senior thesis seminar, finally asked me for a celebratory drink when we turned our big, fat, exhausting papers in. We quickly became fast friends, finding that we had much more in common than a love for France and European History.


And now, back to Europe -- Mother England -- Naomi must go. To celebrate her last night in New York, she had a brilliant cocktail party on her building's roof, where we sipped champagne and nibbled on a delightful array of desserts while gazing out onto the summer-hot New York City skyline. Among the deserts were two Georgia's Bakery favorites: the deliciously sinful, silken dark-chocolate cake, and the white-chocolate raspberry cake. Though my dessert contribution may not be able to rival the decadence of Georgia's famous Upper West Side treats, my wine-roasted peaches with honey-mint yogurt cream were a bit hit. I used chocolate Madeleines as a accent cake to complement the wine syrup. As Simon so charmingly said of my concoction: "They were so good, I ate three. So sorry to those of you who didn't get to try."

For those left out, here's the recipe so that you, too, may have a taste.



WINE-ROASTED PEACHES WITH HONEY MINT YOGURT CREAM

6 slightly unripe peaches
1 cup sweet red wine*
1 1/2 cups Greek strained yogurt
Honey
1 Tbsp minced Mint

* I used a red, Sangiovese wine because that's what I had in my fridge. It ended up working rather well, giving the peaches a deep, blood red color, and the syrup it made was deliciously colorful. I would also recommend any sweet wine of your choice, and even champagne may work and give a nice golden hue to the dish.


Set oven to 400-degrees Fahrenheit.

Cut peaches in half, and twist each half from the pit to have two whole halves. Set aside. If you cannot break the halves free, gently cut half from around the pit. If one side has a stubborn pit that cannot come out, roast the peach half with the pit and remove once flesh is soft.


In a large, shallow baking dish, pour in the wine so that there is enough to cover the bottom with about a centimeter-height of liquid. Add about two tablespoons of honey, for a sweet syrup. Add less honey for a less-sweet syrup. Whisk honey and wine mixture until honey disappears. Arrange peaches, flesh-side down, in wine. Place in oven, and let roast for 20-30mins, or until peaches are supple and soft, but not mushy.

Measure out yogurt in a large bowl. Mince mint, add to yogurt. Whisk yogurt until smooth. Add honey to taste, and whisk mixture until fluffy. You may wish to add more mint for a stronger taste. Cover and set aside in refrigerator.

When peaches are done, take out of the oven and place peaches on a working surface, like a large place, so as not to stain counter top or wooden cutting board. Take out remaining pits. Pour remaining wine syrup into a small pan, and reduce by bringing to a boil and reducing heat until liquid forms a syrup, occasionally stirring slowly.

To arrange peaches on a dish, spoon a circle of syrup in the middle of a single plate. Place peach, flesh side up, off center in the syrup. Spoon a dollop of yogurt-cream in center of peach. Just before serving, drizzle a bit of syrup in a line across peach and yogurt. Be careful -- if you pour this sauce on the yogurt too early, the fruit acids will make yogurt curdle. Serve with a sprig of mint, or a little cake nestled under peach.



Bon appetit!



Georgia's Bakery
2418 Broadway, at 89th Street
http://www.georgiasbakeshop.net/
212.362.2000