The Late Night Gourmet
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- Joined
- 30 Mar 2017
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- Detroit, USA
- Website
- absolute0cooking.com
What's your favorite color?
I remember being asked that when I was a kid, and I sometimes get that question as an adult. Some people take this sort of thing seriously: they wear their favorite color, decorate their house in that color, even feature their color in their wedding. But, I never had a real favorite color. I think I liked black the best for clothing. But, if you're a kid who tells people you like the color black, they want to send you to a psychologist. So, I always said "blue". I don't think that anyone who says their favorite color is blue actually has a favorite color.
But, that all changed last night. I decided to make some tabouli, and then things went off the rails a bit: I ended up making three things in 30 minutes, and all of them were decidedly...green. The directions for all three things are basically the same: chop everything up and blend together, salting to taste. It's interesting, too, how these things took me to different parts of the world.
Tabouli (Middle East)
My brother is gluten intolerant, so I made some for him without the bulgar wheat, It turns out that I like it better this way, since it highlights my favorite part of tabouli: the mint.
Ingredients
parsley, mint, tomato, onion, garlic - all chopped
olive oil and lemon juice in equal amounts
salt to taste
Sauce Vierge (France)
Sometimes, I taste something or see something, and I want to figure out how to make it. In this case, I heard the name, and decided to investigate. This is now my favorite sauce.
Ingredients
avocado, 1/2 onion, 1 garlic clove, 2 tablespoons basil, 1 tablespoon cilantro, 2 Calabrian chili peppers - all diced
olive oil and lime juice - mine isn't swimming in oil like most sauce vierge that you might see
Pesto (Italy)
I've made so many pestos from so many different kinds of greens beside the classic basil. I think arugala might be my favorite. As with all pestos, the greens can be any green, the cheese can be any hard cheese, the nuts can be any nuts, and there's some flexibility in the oil. But, here's where my insistence on not following a recipe nearly led to disaster: I was a bit overconfident in adding the salt. Fortunately, I had some arugala remaining, so I blended it in, and the balance was restored. I also continued my previous experiment by adding a pepper to the pesto to give it a kick.
Ingredients
arugala, shredded romano, olive oil, Calabrian chili pepper + oil, sesame seeds
Directions
Pulse the arugala and chopped chili pepper with olive oil in a food processor. Add cheese and seasame seeds and blend to desired consisency. Add salt a little bit at a time, and blend until desired taste is achieved.
Yes, green's my favorite color now, and I have no doubt about it. But, don't expect to see me wearing it.
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