Simplify, simplify – Chicken with Leeks and Barley

Food in 21^st Century America has become so complicated that it's now intimidating. I possess hundreds of dollars worth of very ambitious cookbooks that I've only opened once, and then closed as everything in them requires high technique I can't perform and exotic ingredients that I can't find.

The ever more exotic – both in terms or technique or ingredients – makes it's difficult for real people to prepare and eat good food at home. Thoreau's dictum – "simplify, simplify" – should be a clarion call to foodies. And if it's not for you, it is for me. Working with small armies of production assistants in sparkling, high-end kitchen sets, celebrity chefs make it look so easy. And after years of marinating ourselves in untold hours of Food Network programming, it has left all too many viewers with a case of learned helplessness. They can; we can't.

Which is rubbish. As my brother-in-law Enrico once said to me, while I was stirring a pot of something, "you think you are cooking the food? No my friend, you are not cooking the food. The fire is cooking the food."

It was truly an "Aha!" moment. All one really needs to make good, wholesome food is about seven ingredients with the appropriate garnishes. And heat. That's it.

The perfect example of a simple, wholesome dish is one I purloined from a magazine 15 years ago and kicked up a bit since: Chicken with leeks and barley. It features simple, easily found ingredients and a minimum of technique. It's also low in fat and high in flavor.

Software

• I pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs
  
• I cup pearled barley (available as bulk foods in any number of local markets)
  
• I cup of chopped leeks, cleaned
  
• 1 cup of Meripoix – diced celery, carrots and onion about, 1/3 cup of each. This is available prepared and pre-packaged in a number of local markets
  
• 1 sprig of thyme, or more if you like (I like)
  
• 1 quart chicken stock – I use fat free
  
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• Grated Parmesan cheese to finish
  
• Chopped flat leave parsley to garnish (purely optional – makes it look pretty)
  

Technique

• In a 2 quart Dutch oven, heat the olive oil
  
• Add meripoix and thyme sprig and sauté for three minutes
  
• Add leeks and sauté for three minutes
  
• Add barley, sauté for three minutes
  
• Add chicken, sauté for five to seven minutes
  
• Add stock a little at a time. Simmer for 40 to 50 minutes until barley is barely al dente
• Remove thyme sprig
  
• Add Parmesan cheese and stir
  
• Plate and garnish with flat leaf parsley if you're so inclined (I am)
  

The result is simple and tasty. One can even garnish the dish with a bit more chicken stock to make it a bit soupier and less stew-like if so desired. And if you don't count the garnishes, herbs, oil, and chicken stock, its seven ingredients with almost no technique.

And heat.

Visitors from out of town and the Pasta with No Name

As Her Imperial Majesty opines continuously, Raleigh is not the kind of place that anybody ever wants to visit. Oh, it's a nice enough place to live – great schools, moderate weather, reasonable taxes and governance – but it is not "A Destination".

New York City? Sure. San Francisco? Undoubtedly. Orlando? 'Natch. One could even lump Asheville or Wilmington unto a short list of places that friends from New York would stop by if they were passing through. But Raleigh? Fuhgeddaboutit.

But some situations are not hard fast and sometimes business comes a calling. Such was the case over the weekend when my brother-in-law Enrico came to town. He was here to work the Fly Fishing Show at the Fair Grounds. I picked him up at the airport and shuttled him around town on Friday afternoon, only to end up at the local Whole Foods. He asked what I wanted to eat for dinner. I said, "Chef, whatever looks good to you."

Before Enrico was titan of fly fishing world, he was a classically trained chef who grew up on the slopes of Mt. Etna. And when he cooks, its mind-bendingly good and astonishingly simple. Cucina rustica, I like to call it.

So we wandered a bit around the Whole Foods, seeing what looked good and what was merely okay. He strolled passed the fish and didn't notice it at all, stopping in front of the meat. About 20 seconds passed before he caught the attention of the butcher.

"Can I see what a pound of bacon looks like?" he asked.

"Sure" came the call from behind the counter. Enrico looked over at me.

"That looks like good bacon."

"Going to do a Carbonara?" I asked. He shook his head indicating the negative.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do".

He thought a minute, and headed down the canned veggie aisle, grabbing a can of diced tomatoes. Next, he stopped and picked up a box of whole wheat linguine. Then, he headed to produce to pick up a couple of red onions, with Her Imperial Majesty Junior following behind with the cart.

"Can you get some half and half. I'm going to pick out a salad." I immediately stopped what I was doing and blasted over to diary to get the half and half. When I arrived back, Chef was eyeballing the green leaf lettuce and the organic spinach.

"That is really green spinach. It's looking good to me". He smiled.

And that was the genesis of the Pasta with No Name.

Ingredients

• Three ounce olive oil for cooking
  
• Two large red onions, peeled and diced
  
• One 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes
  
• One pound of good bacon, thick cut, and diced
  
• Eight ounces half and half
  
• ¼ cup of white wine
  
• 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme
  
• One pound whole wheat pasta
  
• Parmesan Cheese
  
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

Technique

• Add olive to deep four quart dutch oven
  
• Add diced onions and a bit of salt to make them sweat. Cooked on high heat covered for about five minutes
  
• Add the bacon and cook for another five minutes
  
• De-glaze with the white wine
  
• Add the can of tomatoes and cook for another ten minutes
  
• Add thyme and cook another ten minutes
  
• Add the half and half and reduce and stir until thickened.
  
• Toss with al dente pasta and Parmesan Cheese. Serve with a green salad.
  

Simple, quick and delicious. Bon Appétit!

Her Imperial Majesty Junior and the Untidy Josephs

Her Imperial Majesty Junior is eight years old and is an expert in getting what she wants. Sometimes it starts as a suggestion. Other times, it's a complaint. The one constant is that it is constant. And in a moment of weakness or inattention, we give in.

Most of the time, it's another stuffed animal. She has so many I've lost count.

The latest though, came in the form of dinner, something near and dear to my heart. She wanted something she called an "Untidy Joseph". I agreed, not realizing that what she was really asking for was a Sloppy Joe.

Yeah, I know. I haven't had one in about 40 years either. I seem to remember they were a staple of Friday nights for a while, snarfing one down right before The Wild Wild West came on.

The simplest way would be to open a can of Manwich™. But what's the fun in that? No, the only way to make a really sloppy Sloppy Joe is more or less from scratch.

Ingredients:

• One large yellow onion, diced
  
• One red bell pepper, diced
  
• 1 pound of ground beef – 90/10 will work. Anything with a higher fat content will require you to drain the rendered fat off
  
• ¼ cup brown sugar
  
• 15 ounce can of tomato sauce
  
• 1 tablespoon of Montreal Steak Seasoning (I know it's cheating but, hey, it's good)
• 1 tablespoon each red wine vinegar and Worcestershire Sauce

Technique:

• Sauté the veggies in a bit of olive oil until soft, about ten minutes or so.
  
• Add the ground beef and sauté until brown. If there is excessive render fat, this is the time to drain it off.
  
• Mix the sugar and steak seasoning mix, then add to the beef and veggie mixture.
  
• Next, add the tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar and cook until thickened and reduced.
  
• Served on toasted rolls.
  

Our results turned out pretty darn tasty and it did give me the opportunity to do some cooking with Das Kinder. Sloppy Joes – Untidy Joseph's if you will – are a great way to have a little kitchen interaction with your own little ones. And it's a good way to take a step, albeit a small one, into your own past.

I see that Netflix has the Wild Wild West. I think it's time to for Das Kinder to meet Jim and Artie. All while eating an Untidy Joseph.


 

Alton Brown and the Mashed Chipotle Sweet Potato Quesadillas

Of all of the folks on the Food Network, the only one who comes off a genuine genius is Alton Brown. The idea that he (and his production staff) can explain the molecular chemistry that happens when something gets cooked and do it with sock puppets so that even her Imperial Majesty Junior can understand it is nothing less than remarkable. Genius is as genius does.

That's why Her Imperial Majesty, das kinder and I recently braved a sojourn to Quail Ridge Book Store inside The Beltline to see Mr. Brown. The place was absolutely packed with (my guess) something like 700 fans, each clutching a new $40 cookbook written by Mr. Brown.

I greeted him on the way in, welcoming him to Raleigh. He said "thank you", then looked at Junior and said "hi, there". She was thrilled.

He took questions for about 30 minutes before signing books, letting those with children go to the front of the line so the little kids could go home and get in the bed. It was a school night after all.

Class. Real class.

His latest endeavor, Good Eats 2, is lavishly illustrated and follows his show episode by episode, showcasing the recipes, procedures and "Knowledge Concentrates", giving a thorough background as to the ingredient in question. The one that jumped out at me while I was standing in line to get the thing signed was for Mashed Chipotle Sweet Potatoes. Alton created this as a side dish. I wanted to take his basic recipe and stick it in a quesadilla, turning it into entrée (and something I can eat on the sofa while watching a baseball game). The result was…well, you'll see.

Ingredients (what he calls software)

• 2 Large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 2 tablespoons for butter
• 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt
• 1 Chipotle pepper in Adobo sauce, chopped
• 1 teaspoon of Adobo sauce (from the pepper can)
• 1/4 cup shredded cheddar or jack cheese – prepackaged blends are cool
• Large flour tortillas

Steam the sweet potatoes in a steamer basket for about 20 minutes or until fork tender. Remove them to a suitable bowl, add the butter and salt and mash them with a potato masher. Add the Chipotle pepper and Adobo, then continue to mash.

Next, prepare your tortilla by covering one half with cheese, then top with your mashed sweet potato mixture. Cover the sweet potato mixture with more cheese and fold the tortilla over. Grill or pan sear your quesadilla until golden brown. Garnish with sour cream, guacamole and refried beans.

Dare I say? It is Good Eats.




 

Everything is better with pork: Salmon with Prosciutto, lentils with yogurt and wilted spinach

I like early fall. It means that here, in Raleigh, it's no longer 90 degrees everyday. And that's the signal I use for firing up the oven.

Turning the oven in summer is an idiotic enterprise that only raises the temperature of my home and, subsequently, jacks up my already high electric bill.

So I don't do it. I wait until autumn to do any roasting, and then, only short snippets. I mean, it's not that cool yet.

At this time of year, if I do anything in a hot oven, it needs to go in and  come out quickly. That doesn't leave much time for big flavors to meld.

The solution: thinly sliced pork.

Now, despite what my vegetarian friends tell me, I still believe that everything tastes better with pork. Don't believe me? Take almost any recipe from the famous Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home from 1994 (save the desserts, ' natch) and add pork. Almost all of them come out better because, as Emeril LaGasse says, "pork fat rules".

I love to cook on Saturday nights and this is one of my favorites: Salmon, wrapped in prosciutto, served with lentils and yogurt and wilted spinach. It's a simple, two pan / two mixing bowl dish that only takes about 20 minutes to cobble together. And since the prosciutto is so thinly sliced as to be translucent, it crisps up beautifully in only a few minutes. Oven on. Oven off.

What you need:

• Salmon filets – 6 to 8 ounce portions should work fine. They should be long and narrow as opposed to short and wide, for reason that will become obvious
  
• 8 slices of prosciutto – the prepackaged stuff will work fine
  
• 8 ounces of cooked lentils – cooked pretty firm. You don't want mushy lentils. The pre-cooked stuff from Trader Joe's works great.
  
• ½ cup plain yogurt – I like Greek yogurt for this assembly
  
• A handful of spinach, coarsely chopped
  
• Juice of a lemon
  
• Olive oil – here you can break out the EVOO but it's not necessary
  
• Thyme, basil and oregano, coarsely chopped
  

How to do it:

• Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
  
• Season the salmon with salt and pepper, then wrap the prosciutto around the salmon, leaving some areas of the fish exposed.
  
• Place in a pan, and douse with a bit of olive oil
  
• Broil it for 10 minutes or so. If you like it pinker, go less.
  
• Meanwhile, take your cooked lentils and drain most of the water out. Add your chopped spinach and herbs, then crank up the heat, cooking the spinach and herbs until just wilted.
  
• Now take your yogurt and combine it with the lemon juice and about a quarter as much olive oil. Whisk so everything gets blended. Now it's time to plate,
  
• Place on piece of your beautiful salmon on a plate. In a bowl, take your lentils and spinach and toss with you lemon yogurt sauce. Arrange on the plate with your salmon.

Simple, easy and healthy. The prosciutto adds a nice salty edge to the salmon while the lentils and spinach balance everything out.



Bon Appetit!


 

 

 

What happens when an ancient restaurant dies – Cheese Soup at The Old Drover’s Inn

Opening montage: bucolic country settings, old barns, portraits of the people mentioned in the voice over.

Ambient sounds: crickets and other appropriate country sounds.

Music: soft, melancholy fiddle music should start midway through the opening narration.

Voice over (should be David McCullough-esque): In 1750, Louis the 15^th presided over the Court at Versailles. Across the channel, 12 year-old Edward the 6^th sat on the throne on England. In America, Benjamin Franklin had just captured nature's fury with his invention the lightening rod. It was an invention he never patented and freely gave away to the world. In China, the Qing Dynasty ruled and would continue to until the early part of the 20^th Century. The Pope, Benedict the 14^th, officiated services at St. Peter's in Rome.

In 1750, Philadelphia was the largest city in the English speaking American colonies with a population of some 25,000. New York had just 15,000 people and Baltimore, a mere 7,000. The average life expectancy was 35 years of age.

In 1750, the Declaration of Independence was 26 years in the future. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, was seven years old. The United States Constitution was 39 years away. Its author, James Madison, had yet to be born.

In 1750, in the town that would later be named Dover Plains in Duchess County, New York, John Preston opened his house to the folks driving cattle from farms in Upstate New York to Vermont. Eventually, it would be called the Old Drover's Inn and it would operate for the next 260 years, serving hearty fare and its famous Cheese Soup to anyone that came by. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton famously fled there to avoid the glaring eyes of the paparazzi and her then husband, Eddie Fisher, in 1962.

Then, in July of this year, 2010, it went through foreclosure and was and shut down. Gone forever. It was sold for less than $350,000.00. So rapid was its demise, it was reported that dirty dishes were simply left on tables and food was allowed to rot in refrigerators.

The economy can be blamed. Changes in diners' tastes can be blamed. Lax management or inattentive service could also be culprits. It's out of the way location -- miles from the nearest Interstate -- may have been a factor.

Whatever. The fact remains, it's gone. And while this one restaurant's closure may or may not be a big deal, it is part of a disturbing trend: America is losing some of its culinary heritage. 

Now, some may argue that we never had any great culinary heritage; that we were all immigrants, bringing our old school recipes and culinary culture with us from Africa, Asia and Europe. America was not France or Italy or China or Japan or some other country with a great culinary tradition; that only now are we learning to cook and care about food in the way that those countries with great culinary traditions did way back when most Americans didn't have indoor plumbing. And you'd be right. But that misses a larger point.

The food our grandparents and great-grandparents ate at the turn of the 20^th century up through the Eisenhower era is alien to most hipsters today. People in Middle America in the early part of the last century -- the non-urban, rustic, bucolic countryside of the Depression -- often ate something they killed in their backyards. Preparations were simple. Restaurants, such as they were, churned out regional comfort food. And as more of these ancient restaurants die, they take their traditional recipes with them to their graves.

I have a cookbook from 1950 that lists the Old Drover's Inn as a destination and includes the recipe for their famous Cheese Soup. Her Imperial Majesty and I visited the Inn during happier times when it was open and, yes, we had the soup. It was astonishing and I can see why it made it into the book. But the book is long out of print. Now, thanks to the internet, the recipe for its' Cheese Soup may live forever. Here it is:

• 12 ounce cheddar cheese, shredded
  
• 4 tablespoons of butter
  
• ½ cup diced carrots
  
• ½ cup diced green peppers
  
• ½ cup minced onion
  
• ½ cup minced celery
  
• 1/3 cup flour
  
• 1 quart, chicken stock
  
• 3 to 4 cups of milk
  
• Salt and pepper
  

Melt butter in 4 quart pan, melt the butter. Sauté all vegetables until soft. Blend in flour to make a roux. Cook one minute, then add stock and stir until thick. At this point, the recipe calls for straining the veggies, but since I don't have a strainer, I put the stock and veggies in a food processor and pureed them. Then, back into the pot. Add the cheese and stir until it melts, then add the milk until it reaches a creamy consistency. Season with salt and pepper. I like to add a shot of sherry at the end for a bit of an extra kick.

Wholesome and savory. Hale and hearty. One can close one's eyes and with the aroma alone be magically transported back in time to a much different America, an America before it had its cultural ADHD, a time when everything didn't have to be oh-so-up-to-the-minute and the 24 hour news cycle simply didn't exist. A time when things were much slower and people stopped at out of the way inns and watering holes to take in the local fare. Sadly, it's an America that slowly going away, dying one by one like the last veterans of wars fought long ago. Soon, they will all exist only in our collective memories, their recipes in ancient, out-of-print cookbooks, preserved for the ages.


 

Circa 1981 – Ruelle’s and Café Central

Her Imperial Majesty is a bit eccentric in a charming sort of British way, and no, it’s not for the obvious reason that she married me. No, she’s a bit eccentric in a charming sort of British way because collects matchbooks from restaurants that are long dead.

The downside: I have lots of packs of matches that I can’t use because they’re “special”.

The upside: As far as collections go, it’s inexpensive and it doesn’t take up much space, unlike collections of shoes, horses or BMWs.

One of her favorite stories is about a long dead restaurant that was once the talk of the Upper West side: Ruelle’s. At 75th and Columbus, it was the place to be single and be seen. A New York magazine piece (starts on page 42) at the time goes to great lengths to talk up how it re-vitalized a neighborhood and went to greater lengths to talk up the singles scene and celebrity sightings.

Bobby DeNiro. Warren Beatty. Calvin Klein. They all popped by at one time or another.

But despite all the attention given to "The Scene" and to the celebrity sightings, there is nary a word about the food. Oh, they do mention that it is a restaurant and not a disco and there is a passing reference to its "nouvelle cuisine", but that’s where it stops.

You see, that was back in the early 1980s. All food was comfort food and, thanks to the absence of The Food Network, not every restaurant was trying to be high-end gourmet. You can call it the “bad old days” if you want. I call it Paleo-food. Paleo-food is simple, honest preparations devoid of pretense and attitude. It was food as "food" and not as "food-based entertainment."

So Her Imperial Majesty and her two mates – Susan and Linda – would hit Ruelle’s for a quick bite before running off to that other west side hot spot (read "meet market"), Café Central. There, they would hustle single men to buy them drinks. And there, Bruno the surly bartender, would sling liquor and abuse the customer base as if he were a future movie star. Heck, every waiter or bartender in New York thinks they’re a future movie star. However, in this case, the surly bartender – Bruno Willis – did turn out to be a future movie star: Bruce Willis.

The ladies all tell me he was a jerk. I wasn’t there and don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what they told me.

Anyway, since they were young and struggling to live in The City, the girls had to eat the cheapest thing on the menu. At Ruelle’s that was the vegetable plate. It’s simple and direct.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup broccoli, steamed
• ½  cup cauliflower, steamed
• ¼ cup diced carrots, steamed
• ½ cup snow peas, steamed
• ¼ cup walnuts 
•  ½ cup each Cheddar and Gruyere cheeses
•  ¼ cup white wine (the cheap stuff will work)
• Juice of one lemon
• Pinch of salt.

 Directions:

• Fire up your broiler
• Take your steamed veggies and walnuts and arrange in some artful way in a broiler proof pan
• Combine the wine, with the lemon juice and salt. Whisk.
• Pour the wine/lemon mixture over the veggies
• Top the veggies with your cheeses
• Broil until the cheese brown and happy
• Serve

Can’t get much easier than that. It’s works as both a side dish and as a main dish, if combined with brown rice. Pair this with a fruity white wine and it should make a easy mid-week meal.

A perfect weekend breakfast – Northern California Style

At the behest of my beloved wife, my lovely  sister gave to me for my birthday Thomas Keller's The French Laundry Cookbook. It's beautiful, with extraordinary insights into the mind and professional acumen of one of the greatest chefs in America, if not the world. Indeed, no less than Anthony Bourdain once said he considered The French Laundry the best restaurant in the world.

So this cookbook was in the perfect place to be THE gift of the year, to be warmly remembered for years and years to come, its pages dog eared, with the entire house smelling of the gastronomical wonders of Thomas Keller and my mediocre ability to channel his culinary genius.

But alas, it was not to be. While the recipes looked fabulous and the photography borders on food porn, everything in it is just too complicated for even an experienced duffer like me to pull off. 

But this is not the first time I've waded into the waters of the Northern California restaurant scene by purchasing a cookbook and seeing if I can conjure that same magic in my own home kitchen. No, the last time I tried that stunt, I had a go at working the culinary genius of fellow Chatham High School graduate Alice Waters (class of 1963). Her restaurant, Chez Panisse, was the toast of the culinary world long before there was Food Network and Emeril LaGasse was just a skinny kid doing guest spots on Cooking with Master Chefs with Julia Child. For the record, he deep fried a turkey.

I don't what it is that makes these recipes so perfectly opaque. I can't seem to pull off any of them. Exotic ingredients coupled with high French technique leave me simply dumbfounded. Indeed, the only dish inspired by Thomas Keller that I can actually prepare with any competence comes not from his beautifully appointed cookbook, but from an extra feature on the DVD of the movie Spanglish.

Yes, that silly Adam Sandler movie, Spanglish.

In it, there is a scene where the Adam Sandler character, who plays a chef, is talking to his romantic interest in the film, played by Paz Vega. During a telephone conversation between the two, there sits in the chef's kitchen one of the most perfect examples of a breakfast sandwich ever made – The Spanglish Sandwich. The producers of the film wanted to give the Adam Sandler character something to eat  that a real chef would prepare after a long shift at the restaurant. For technical assistance, they went to – here's your time to guess – Thomas Keller of the afore mentioned French Laundry. During the scene, Adam's character looks at, but never bites into the sandwich.

So much for the willing suspension of disbelief. The thing is such as work of art that everybody watching the flick is waiting for a moment that never comes – the happiness of the first bite of the perfect late night / early morning breakfast.

Interestingly enough, this is actually easy to prepare and makes a wonderful weekend breakfast. It's basically a BLT, with an egg fried over easy with the yolk is just barely runny. Add toasted bread and a slice of cheese and you're off to the races. When you do make the toast, run the slice with the cheese under a broiler or  in a toaster oven to get that slightly burnt cheesy "au gratin" effect. Bibb lettuce works best for this and you can add some fresh basil if you have that on hand. I typically layer it from bottom to top: lettuce/basil, tomato, bacon, egg, cheese. Mayo or aioli is optional.

Bon appetite!

Scallops with white beans, tomatoes, crispy prosciutto and arugula

These days, television is jammed packed with pretentious morons who preen about and squawk about the things they preen about and squawk about as if they are the only people with any wisdom at all about the given subject at hand. And no, I’m not talking about the talking heads at either Fox News or MSNBC although I easily could be. No, what bothers me is the second tier hosts of the Food Network and the Travel Channel shows. Watching the ridiculous competitions of aspiring celebrity chefs or food spokes models jabbering on and on about whatever they (or in reality, their production assistants) are cooking sets my teeth on edge.

Don’t get me wrong. Mario Batali is a real genius and I’ve been to some of his places (Babbo -- duck breast, medium rare with a raspberry reduction served with a heavenly sage risotto). Ditto chef, writer and world class raconteur Anthony Bourdain (Les Halles -- steak frites, medium rare – ‘natch). But for my money, the reigning genius is Jamie Oliver, who comes off as almost autistic in his devotion to food and its preparation. His focus is so laser sharp he almost appears to be channeling The Almighty.

This recipe comes from page 160 of The Naked Chef Takes Off, published in 2000. Like most of Jamie’s dishes, there are a lot of flavors and textures that work in a most harmonious fashion. It’s a very simple recipe with ingredients you can get at the neighborhood Trader Joes: scallops, tomatoes, anchovies, white beans from a can, prosciutto, arugula, lemon juice and olive oil.

To start, preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Quarter your tomatoes and season them with a bit of oregano. Let them go skin side down in the oven for about 15 minutes. Next, put the prosciutto in the pan next to the tomatoes at let it go for another 15 minutes or so until the prosciutto is all crispy and happy and the tomatoes are roasted through. While that’s happening….

Sauté some garlic in olive oil (no, you don’t have to use EVOO, that’s for salads) and your anchovies for a minute or two, then add a can of white beans (cannellini beans are what the recipe calls for but I’ve used navy beans in a pinch. I’ve even thought about trying chick peas next time. The extra nuttiness might work). Add a bit of white wine, and then once everything is heated through, mash the beans into a course puree. Once that’s done and the tomatoes and prosciutto are resting…

Sear off the scallops in olive oil. They should be dry before you cook them or else they won’t get that caramelized happiness you need to make this dish work. Two minutes a side should be sufficient. Now, it’s time to assemble.

I typically serve this in bowls just because the presentation looks so much better. Beans go in as the base. Then, add the scallops. Then top with the roasted tomatoes and crispy prosciutto, crumbled up like bacon bits. As a finishing touch, top with a bit of arugula and dress the whole thing with a dressing of lemon juice and olive oil (now you can use the EVOO). In my dressing, I usually add a bit of kosher salt as an emulsifier.

The result? Simple. Easy. Relatively inexpensive. Damn tasty. And one of the very reasons I think Jamie is a genius.