Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

'Twist of the Wrist' yields delicious

Nancy Silverton has proven to have deft hands in the dessert world and at her infamous La Brea Bakery. She was the original dessert chef at Spago and created the bakery that reinvented good bread now distributed all over the USA. She also has her pulse on the reality of many peoples’ lives, as the stated mission in her compelling new cookbook, “A Twist of the Wrist,” is to “get you back in the kitchen.”

The “you” being all those folks who have shifted to home meal replacement (HMR) or takeout, dumping the contents onto their plates and eating rather than cooking from scratch.

Time is the big issue. Nancy is right on target!

“A Twist of the Wrist” (Alfred A. Knopf, publisher, $29.95) advocates the use of canned, tinned, jarred or otherwise preserved foods that make the difference between an average recipe… and a recipe that is truly outstanding with layers of flavors normally only experienced with complicated recipes in the esoteric land of haute cuisine.

Do NOT be turned off by the length of the recipes… Nancy is doing what Julia Child did three decades ago… she writes everything you need to know in the recipe with the minimum of guesswork or “assumed” culinary skills.

Bottom line: the results are as good as or better than you’d be served in many, many restaurants. They are worth your time and effort and her book is an investment sure to pay dividends for many years.

Tuna Niçoise Salad with Aged Sherry Vinaigrette

Vinaigrette:

3 tbsp. aged sherry vinegar

2 large garlic cloves, grated or minced (about 2 tsp.)

1 medium shallot, grated or minced (about 2 tsp.)

1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp. high-quality extra-virgin olive oil

1 tsp. kosher salt

½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Salad:

6 medium canned or jarred potatoes, sliced ¼-inch thick (about 1 ½ cups)

4 large eggs

Kosher salt

ÂĽ lb. haricots verts (or any green beans, trimmed of stem ends only)

16 butter lettuce heaves (not outermost leaves)

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

28 small, sweet tomatoes (scant ½ pint) cut in half, or 14 cherry tomatoes, halved

16 ounces olive oil-packed tuna, lightly drained

28 Niçoise olives or other small black olives

1-2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil for thinning the tapénade, if necessary

1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. black olive tapénade

8 anchovy fillets

20 fresh chives

To make vinaigrette, pour the vinegar into a bowl large enough to toss the salad in. Stir in the garlic and shallot. Stir in the olive oil, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Place the potato slices in the bowl with the vinaigrette and allow them to marinate while you prepare the other ingredients.

To hard-cook the eggs, place them in a medium saucepan with enough water to cover, salt the water generously and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the eggs for about 5 minutes or until the yolks are bright yellow but slightly wet-looking.*

While they’re cooking, fill a large bowl with ice water. When eggs are done, drain and immediately plunge them into the ice water to chill. (This prevents the eggs from cooking any further before they’re peeled.) Peel the eggs when they’re cool.

To cook haricots verts (French green beans or any green bean), bring a small pot of water to a boil over high heat and add a generous amount of kosher salt. Fill a large bowl with ice water. Blanch the beans in the boiling water until they’re bright green and just tender but still slightly crisp, about 2 minutes. Drain and immediately and transfer the beans to the ice water bath to stop them from cooking and to maintain their green color. As soon as the green beans are cold, drain them to prevent them from getting waterlogged and pat them dry with paper towels.

Transfer the potatoes to a small bowl, leaving vinaigrette in the bottom of the large bowl. Add the lettuce leaves to the bowl with the vinaigrette, season them with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and toss to coat. Remove the lettuce from the vinaigrette (there should still be vinaigrette left in the bowl) and fan the leaves out on four plates. Scatter the potatoes over the lettuce. Toss the tomatoes in the bowl with the vinaigrette and then scatter them over the salads. Put the green beans in the vinaigrette, toss to coat and scatter them on the salads.

Crumble the tuna into roughly 1 ½-inch pieces and add it to the salads, then scatter them with the olives.

If the tapénade is thick and paste-like, put it in a small bowl and stir in a tablespoon or two of olive oil until you obtain a loose, spoon-able consistency.

Break each half in half with your hands and place both halves in the center of each salad. Spoon ½ teaspoon tapénade over each egg half and top each with an anchovy fillet. Use scissors to finely snip about 1 teaspoon chives over each salad; sprinkle with sea salt and drizzle with any remaining vinaigrette around the salad.

*Silverton cooks an extra egg to use as a “tester,” breaking it in half after the 5-minute simmer to be sure other hard-cooked eggs are not overcooked.

Easy Apple Turnovers

Gale Gand, Tru Restaurant, Chicago

½ Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and chopped (about ½ cup)

ÂĽ cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tbsp. apple butter

Flour for rolling puff pastry

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed overnight in refrigerator

1 egg, beaten

Optional glaze:

¼ cup confectioners’ sugar

1 tsp. whole milk

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Put the chopped apple, applesauce and apple butter in a small mixing bowl and stir to combine.

Dust a flat work surface lightly with flour and lay out puff pastry on it. Dust the pastry lightly with flour and using a rolling pin to roll it out to a 10x10-inch square. Cut the pastry into four 5x5-inch squares. Use a pastry brush to brush the edges of the squares with the beaten egg, reserving the remaining beaten egg for brushing the tops of the turnovers.

Dividing it evenly, spoon the apple mixture into the center of each pastry square. Fold the squares over diagonally, pressing the edges to enclose the filling while also working out any air. Press the edges with the tines of a fork to seal them completely and to make decorative hatches.

Place turnovers on a baking sheet, brush the tops with the remaining beaten egg and bake them for about 25 minutes, until the tops are dark golden. (The turnovers will be golden after 20 minutes, but they need the extra 5 minutes for the pastry to cook all the way through. If they fall when removed from the oven, they are undercooked.) Remove the turnovers from the oven and place them on a rack to cool slightly.

If you’re using the glaze, while the turnovers are baking, stir the confectioners’ sugar and milk together in a small bowl until smooth. Allow the turnovers to cool slightly before drizzling them with the glaze.

 

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