Happenstance salad
Oct. 23rd, 2010 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredrikegermanI'm on deadline for work at the moment, so I've mostly cancelled my social life for the latter half of this month. Before that, I went to NYC for our anniversary (as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
desireearmfeldt was attending a conference there), ran my first half marathon, and reached the beach with 11 colleagues (involving personally running 21 miles spread over three legs and 30 hours).
But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Today, I'm here to talk about the joy of getting something tasty and unexpected from whatever's kicking around the kitchen.
I made Meyer Lemon Tabbouleh with kohlrabi and scallops. This used up big piles of stuff we'd had kicking around the kitchen for ages:
What I ended up doing was using the zest and juice of the lemon to rehydrate the bulgur (after a goodly starting soak in water). Added just a splash of raki and some sea salt. This turned out yummy and very nicely meyer-lemon-flavored (thankstallou!). Added the chopped parsley and finely chopped onion to that. If you're going to put raw onions into something, I always say use a red onion, chop it thin, and make sure it soaks in some acid to take the edge off.
The Kohlrabi I cut into matchsticks using our mandoline and then steamed in the rice cooker's steamer basket. The radishes I thin-sliced with the mandoline.
Finally, I had to cook the scallops. This didn't go as well as hoped, as they weren't fully thawed. My plan had been to quick-brown them in butter, but the pan rapidly filled with liquid. I pulled them out and ran the rest through the pan to get the liquid off, cooked that down, and added the cooked scallop liquid to the bulgur (remember the bulgur? This is tabbouleh, there's bulgur in it.). That left me with scallops that I could then cook in a further round of melted butter (leaving plenty of space between for the last remnants of liquid). A splash of sherry to deglaze the pan and everything was ready to eat.
Yummy, and very gratifying to know that it's possible to throw together something that sounds froofy and high-end from bits and pieces that were kicking around and needed to be eaten up before they actually went bad...
desireearmfeldt was attending a conference there), ran my first half marathon, and reached the beach with 11 colleagues (involving personally running 21 miles spread over three legs and 30 hours).But that's not what I'm here to talk about today. Today, I'm here to talk about the joy of getting something tasty and unexpected from whatever's kicking around the kitchen.
I made Meyer Lemon Tabbouleh with kohlrabi and scallops. This used up big piles of stuff we'd had kicking around the kitchen for ages:
- The lone Meyer lemon that was picked after being on the tree for something like 6 months
- Scallops from the back of the freezer
- Last 1/2 cup of bulgur in the bottom of the jar
- Aging farmshare parsley
- Small red onion from farm share a few weeks back
- Radishes that have been kicking around for ages
- Mixed farmshare salad greens, most of them a week and a half old
- 2 small kohlrabi. I'm normally not a big fan, but these were small and sweet.
What I ended up doing was using the zest and juice of the lemon to rehydrate the bulgur (after a goodly starting soak in water). Added just a splash of raki and some sea salt. This turned out yummy and very nicely meyer-lemon-flavored (thanks
tallou!). Added the chopped parsley and finely chopped onion to that. If you're going to put raw onions into something, I always say use a red onion, chop it thin, and make sure it soaks in some acid to take the edge off.The Kohlrabi I cut into matchsticks using our mandoline and then steamed in the rice cooker's steamer basket. The radishes I thin-sliced with the mandoline.
Finally, I had to cook the scallops. This didn't go as well as hoped, as they weren't fully thawed. My plan had been to quick-brown them in butter, but the pan rapidly filled with liquid. I pulled them out and ran the rest through the pan to get the liquid off, cooked that down, and added the cooked scallop liquid to the bulgur (remember the bulgur? This is tabbouleh, there's bulgur in it.). That left me with scallops that I could then cook in a further round of melted butter (leaving plenty of space between for the last remnants of liquid). A splash of sherry to deglaze the pan and everything was ready to eat.
Yummy, and very gratifying to know that it's possible to throw together something that sounds froofy and high-end from bits and pieces that were kicking around and needed to be eaten up before they actually went bad...
