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10/03/2018 07:00 AMHere are some recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s new book, to be published later in October, called Everyday Dorie.
LUANG PRABANG CHICKEN-CHILI SANDWICHES
Makes 4 sandwiches
When I was in Luang Prabang, Laos, with my son, Joshua, we quickly adopted an evening routine. We’d go to the night market, stroll among the vendors for a while, and then turn into the alley where the food merchants set up. The sandwich ladies were at the entrance. Each woman would start putting together a sandwich only when the order came in. The process would start with one of them slicing a bamboo-skewered grilled chicken breast into long strips. Next would come the bread, a soft, almost squishy half-baguette. She’d open the bread wide and place it on the palm of her left hand, then get to work slathering both sides with mayonnaise and hot chile paste, covering the bread with slices of chicken moistened with a little sweet chili sauce, rounds of tomato, and long slices of cucumber, tucking in some lettuce and finishing it all off with a prolonged squeeze of sweet chili sauce. Then, the final touch: She’d close the sandwich with a rectangle of paper torn from a magazine and secure the whole bundle with a rubber band.
It’s not easy to give a precise recipe for this sandwich, so I’ve given you the elements and the order in which they can be layered (but don’t necessarily have to be). Since grilled chicken is not a year-round staple in our house, I make the sandwiches with sautéed or oven-roasted chicken breasts.
A word on quantities: This is truly a season-to-taste recipe, so while I’ve given you measurements, please treat them as guidelines.
Four 8-inch-long soft half-baguettes or sub rolls, split
About 1/3 cup (80 ml) mayonnaise
2 to 3 tablespoons Sriracha (to taste)
2 to 3 Oven-Roasted Chicken Breasts (page 108), depending on size, or other cooked chicken, cut into long strips
About 1/3 cup (80 ml) Thai sweet chili sauce (see page 335)
2 tomatoes, sliced
2/3 English cucumber, peeled or unpeeled and cut into long thin slices
About 2 cups (about 100 grams) shredded crispy lettuce, such as iceberg
1. Spread both cut sides of the baguettes or rolls with mayonnaise and Sriracha. Arrange the chicken strips over the bottom halves and moisten with some of the chili sauce. Add the tomatoes and cucumber, drizzle with more chili sauce, and top with the lettuce. Give everything a last hit of chili sauce and close the sandwiches.
2. Press the sandwiches down or, if you want the true Luang Prabang experience, secure them with rubber bands and wait for about 15 minutes before snapping the bands and digging in.
STORING: The sandwiches are good immediately and best 15 minutes later.
OVEN-ROASTED CHICKEN BREASTS
1. If you can find small skinless, boneless breasts, use them — they work best with this recipe. If you get big breasts (more usual in supermarkets), cut them horizontally in half. Rub the breasts with a little olive oil and some lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. (You can marinate the breasts in this mix for a few hours in the refrigerator, or at room temperature just while you preheat the oven.) Lay the breasts out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or foil. Roast them in a 350-degree oven for about 20 minutes (longer if they’re thick and more than about 5 ounces), until cooked through. Cut into one — it should be opaque at the center or measure 165 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. Wrapped well, the chicken will keep in the refrigerator for about 5 days.
Playing Around: Of course you can use a rotisserie chicken here. And you can add other ingredients to the mix, like slices of hot pepper (I sometimes add jalapeños, fresh or pickled), shredded carrots (it’s nice but not necessary to toss the carrots and the lettuce with a little seasoned rice vinegar) and/or, my favorite extra, fresh mint and/or cilantro.
Note on THAI SWEET CHILI SAUCE: The name tells you almost everything you need to know about this popular condiment. Sweeter than it is hot, the orange sauce is thick, pourable, and as easy to add to dishes as ketchup. It’s found in supermarkets under popular labels like Thai Kitchen, A Taste of Thai, Kikkoman, and even proprietary brands like Trader Joe’s. I use Mae Ploy, found in many specialty markets.
LUANG PRABANG CHICKEN-CHILI SANDWICHES is excerpted from Everyday Dorie © 2018 by Dorie Greenspan. Photography © 2018 by Ellen Silverman. Reproduced by permission of Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
LEMON ‘GOOP’ AND SYRUP
Makes about 2/3 cup goop and ¾ cup syrup
I had something like this years and years ago at a restaurant near Le Dôme in Paris. It was served with tuna; perhaps tuna cooked in olive oil, I don’t remember. What I do remember is that I loved it, went home, tried to re-create it, and came up short. The second time I had it was at a Paris bistro called Les Enfants Rouges, where the chef, Daï Shinozuka, served a dab of it with fish. Daï gave me a recipe—and this is based on it—but his started with preserved lemons. The recipe I finally came up with uses ordinary lemons and finishes up as a glossy jam that tastes a little like preserved lemons but is sweeter and more complex.
You’ll have more syrup than you need to make the jam—aka “goop”—but the syrup is as good as the jam. I’ve added it to vinaigrettes (page 307), roasted beets, sautéed green beans, tuna salad, chicken salad, and more. It’s a terrific “tool” to have in the fridge.
I serve the goop with fish and shellfish, pork, and chicken. To start you on the road to playing around with this, try it on Twice-Flavored Scallops (page 193).
6 large lemons
2 cups (480 ml) water
1½ cups (300 grams) sugar
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
WORKING AHEAD Refrigerate the goop and syrup separately until needed. In a tightly covered container, the syrup will keep forever, and the goop’s lifespan is only slightly shorter.
1. Using a vegetable peeler or small paring knife, remove the zest from 3 of the lemons, taking care not to include any of the white pith; set aside.
2. One by one, cut a slice from the top and bottom of each lemon, cutting deeply enough to reveal the fruit. Stand the lemon upright on a cutting board and, cutting from top to bottom, slice away the rind and pith, again cutting until the fruit is revealed. Slice between the membranes of each lemon to release the segments.
3. Bring the water, sugar and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Drop in the segments and reserved zest and bring back to a boil, then lower the heat so that the syrup simmers gently. Cook for about 1 hour, at which point the syrup will have thickened and the lemons will have pretty much fallen apart. It might look as though the lemons have dissolved, but there’ll still be fruit in the pan. Remove from the heat.
4. The fruit needs to be puréed, a job you can do with a blender (regular or immersion) or a food processor; if you have a mini-blender or mini-processor, use it.
5. Strain the syrup into a bowl and put the fruit in the blender or processor. (Save the syrup in the bowl!) Add a spoonful of the syrup to the lemons and whir until you have a smooth, glistening purée. Add more syrup as needed to keep the fruit moving and to get the consistency you want. I like the goop when it’s thick enough to form a ribbon when dropped from a spoon. Thicker is better than thinner, because you can always adjust the consistency with more of the reserved syrup.
LEMON “GOOP” AND SYRUP is excerpted from Everyday Dorie © 2018 by Dorie Greenspan. Photography © 2018 by Ellen Silverman. Reproduced by permission of Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
LETTUCE SOUP
Makes 4 to 6 servings
An elegant soup with a haphazard origin story. Everything that’s in this soup—a couple of heads of lettuce, scallions, celery, garlic, and a few herbs—was meant to be in a salad to go with some seared scallops. It was going to be lunch on the deck and it was meant to be quick, easy and light. And then two more people showed up and I had to scramble to find a way to stretch what I had. Soup! The ultimate stretcher. A half hour of heat, a good spin in the blender, and I was saved. I poured the soup into wide shallow bowls, cut the scallops into quarters (so they’d look more abundant), opened some wine, and set out some bread. What was a scramble is now a summer go-to.
WORKING AHEAD The soup can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to 3 days in a tightly covered container. You can reheat it gently (the color will be better if you don’t cover the pot) or serve it chilled.
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 fat scallions, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
2 medium shallots, thinly sliced, rinsed and patted dry
1 medium onion, thinly sliced or chopped, rinsed and patted dry
1 celery stalk, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 to 3 garlic cloves (to taste), germ removed (see page 320) and thinly sliced
Fine sea salt and freshly ground pepper, preferably white
2 sprigs fresh parsley
1 sprig fresh thyme
4 cups (960 ml) chicken or vegetable broth or water
1 head romaine lettuce, trimmed and thinly sliced crosswise
1 head Boston (or butter) lettuce, trimmed and sliced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
Freshly squeezed juice of ½ lemon
Optional add-ins (see Choices, opposite)
1. Working in a Dutch oven or large saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add the scallions, shallots, onion, celery, and garlic, season with salt and pepper and stir to coat the vegetables with butter. Toss in the parsley and thyme and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables soften, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Pour in the broth or water and bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer, partially cover the pot, and cook for 10 minutes. Remove the lid, stir in the romaine and Boston lettuce, and cook, uncovered, for 3 minutes, or just until the lettuce is wilted. Remove the pot from the heat, pull out the sprigs of parsley and thyme, and stir in the mint.
3. Using a blender, standard or handheld (immersion), or a food processor, and working in batches, whir the soup until you have a very smooth puree. Taste for salt and pepper and add the lemon juice before serving.
4. Serve the soup while it’s steaming hot, or allow it to cool, refrigerate, and serve chilled. If you want to add seafood, divide it among the soup plates and pour over the hot soup. If you’ve chosen to add ravioli, cook them before adding to the soup.
CHOICES: Scallops would make this a meal, but the soup can be served as a starter with just a few croutons, a sprinkling of cheese, a dollop of plain Greek yogurt or a drizzle of pesto or olive oil. It can also be chilled and served in glasses, to be sipped rather than spooned. And it is equally good with shrimp or cooked mini ravioli.
Note from p. 320:
Onions, shallots, and garlic: To help get all the good flavor from onions and shallots, I take a quick extra step at prep time. After I’ve sliced or chopped them, I rinse them under cold water and then pat them dry. The short rinse washes away the bitter liquid that’s drawn out when you cut them. If I’m using the onion (or shallot) raw in a salad, I sometimes rinse it and then let the slices sit in a bowl of cold water—the chill gives them added crunch.
Unless I’m using whole garlic cloves, smashed or otherwise, I always cut each peeled clove in half the long way so that I can chisel out the green germ that runs the length of it. I learned this trick years ago when I was working with the chef Daniel Boulud, who had learned it years before when he was an apprentice in France. Removing the germ tones down garlic’s brashest flavors, and it may make the garlic more easily digestible—the jury’s still out on that
LETTUCE SOUP is excerpted from Everyday Dorie © 2018 by Dorie Greenspan. Photography © 2018 by Ellen Silverman. Reproduced by permission of Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.