Fuchsia Dunlop's Pantry Noodles

There are days - you know the ones - when you must make a meal out of nothing. In winter, my go-to is Jen's Linguine with Sardines, Fennel, and Tomato (often with onion instead of fennel, since that's always around). In summer, it's slices of sourdough and perfect tomatoes and some sort of cheese. When it's not that, it's migas or chilaquiles. I really like tomatoes.

But still, it's nice to have other options. And last night, while planning Friday night dinner, I came across a Guardian article about making dinner from the pantry. Bookmarked, saved.

I had been gushing over yet another round of videos about Turkish cooking, trying to back my way into a decent recipe for Kanafe. Not so simple. Turned out it was much easier to figure out a dinner plan for the evening. I revisited that Guardian piece, saw Fuchsia Dunlop's recipe for spicy sesame noodles, and called it a day.

Good Chinese food is all about balancing the hot, sour, salty, and sweet. So why do sesame noodles always get a pass? We load them up with peanut butter until they're gluey and cloying. If we're being honest, here, I find it sort of gross. But thanks to Fuchsia, there is a better way. I'll never make sesame noodles the same again.

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Dunlop's sauce is a pantry sauce. It's based on peanut butter. But smartly, she has you add a bit of water to the mixture, giving an otherwise clumpy sauce the texture of light cream. The noodles get slicked and flavored, but never clump.

Also likely in your pantry: soy sauce, vinegar. Maybe some sesame oil. A cucumber, a scallion. Maybe some sesame seeds. That's it. If you don't have any of the above, don't sweat it. You need something acidic. Chianking vinegar is best, but red wine vinegar and lime juice both work. I bet lemon juice would work, too. As for the vegetables, Dunlop calls only for scallion, but adding a cucumber makes the experience feel less "crap, instant ramen" and more "wow, I'm a genius." If you have some kale or bok choy or cabbage or carrots red pepper or whatever else, feel free to throw that in, too. And remember, this is pantry dinner: don't worry so much about quantities.

We've got four pints of sungold cherry tomatoes on the counter, and I've been munching on them almost maniacally, waiting for regular tomatoes to get good and seconds to hit the markets. August is canning season around here, and while I already pressure-canned 6 pints of salsa (!), the fun is just beginning. Happy end of July, folks. See you in the dog days.

Fuchsia Dunlop's Pantry NoodlesAdapted from Fuchsia Dunlop, via this article in the Guardian Serves 4

This is a pantry dinner, but still - Fuchsia Dunlop's pantry might look a bit different than yours. I've listed her recommended ingredients first, followed by one or more totally acceptable substitutes. Remember, don't sweat it.

For the noodles:
4 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons light soy sauce or scant 2 tablespoons regular soy sauce
1.5 teaspoons dark soy sauce or 1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon Chianking vinegar or scant 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar or lime juice
3 teaspoons chili oil (to taste - Dunlop says 2-6), or use whatever chili paste/sauce you have (sriracha, sambal oelek, etc), adding to taste
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
500 grams dried udon noodles or any other noodle you like

To finish:
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 scallions, sliced thinly
2 Persian cucumbers, quartered lengthwise and sliced
Any other vegetables you have lying around (red pepper, carrot, cabbage, bok choy, kale, whatever), chopped into bite-sized pieces

Toast the sesame seeds in a small dry pan over medium heat until golden. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, use a fork to mash the peanut butter with the soy sauces (or soy sauce and honey) and vinegar until completely smooth. Stir in the chili and sesame oils and the garlic, and add enough water to make the mixture the consistency of whipping cream.

Cook the noodles according to the instructions on the package. If you're serving these noodles cold, as I did, set up an ice bath and use it to shock the noodles as soon as they finish cooking. Drain the noodles.

Separate the noodles into 4 bowls. Divide any vegetables you're using among the bowls, and ladle a spoonful of the sauce over each bowl. Top with scallions and sesame seeds. Tell your guests to mix everything well before eating.

Reading: July 2014

Turkey's on my mind this month, since my brother has spent his summer doing research and meeting interesting folks in Kurdistan, Tel Aviv, and now, Istanbul. I spent a week in Istanbul back in 2006, but according to my brother, so much has changed since I visited. I feel like I missed at least half the great food Istanbul has to offer, and he's definitely making up for my poor planning. For the rest of us, though, here are some great links to food in Turkey, specifically Istanbul, and then a slew of other links that caught my eye this month.

• The dough for Katmer, one of my favorite Turkish pastries, is notoriously thin. Watch an expert make it effortlessly (then go find some - it's amazing.)
• Anissa Helou's whole vimeo channel, while we're at it. From baklava to lavash to tagliatelle, she's caught it all on video.
• Robyn's food tour with Istanbul Eats, run by my buddy Yigal. I'm full just reading it.
• As if they knew I'd be doing a Turkey edition of link love, Yigal and team recently posted an awesome-looking tour of Gaziantep, the food capital of Turkey. Wish I could go on this so, so bad.
• Last but not least, if you've never had isot biber, you've been missing out. It's a Turkish chile (also called urfa biber) that's similar to Aleppo chile, but, I would argue, better. Also, Aleppo chile is really hard to come by these days, for obvious reasons; isot is a great substitute. it's smokey and floral and in some cases, mixed with sumac and salt and other stuff. It's what I use in my green beans and in so many other things. It's really a staple around here. You can get it from igourmet (linked above) or Kalustyan's. To give some perspective on how essential it is to my cooking, I have two different jars of it that live permanently on the counter, and at least one kilo stowed away. It's that essential.

And other non-Turkey related stuff:

• Chocolate ice cubes for your ice coffee and Angostura-thyme ice cubes for your iced tea. Brilliant.
• I love Yam Som-O (pomelo salad) and make it all the time. Cara of BGSK recently wrote up her trip to Thailand, and shared this fine-looking recipe for Som Tam-style broccoli, which I will be making as soon as broccoli is back in my good graces.
• Can I geek out on you guys for a second? Earlier this year, I bought a pressure canner from my friend Cathy, who had 3 because she was testing recipes for her eagerly-anticipated, extremely awesome book, Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Practical Pantry, coming out this fall and available now for preorder on Amazon. So yes: she sold me one of her pressure canners. But owning a pressure canner isn't quite the same as using one, and it took me until this weekend to finally take the plunge. I was nervous: as in, I stared endlessly at the pressure gauge, worried in equal parts about the pressure dropping and the canner spontaneously exploding -- but it all turned out okay, and now I'm the proud owner of 6 pints of pressure-canned salsa, ready for winter. I can't wait to keep exploring more recipes. If you're interested in making the salsa recipe, for canning or just to eat now/freeze, you can find it here, on Food52. It's a Mrs. W classic.
• Last but not least: lately, some of you have asked for the recipes for dishes I've posted to my instagram. Just wanted to let you know that I've started posting recipes to the photos themselves, which makes it super easy to find the recipe you want. For example, click on a recent picture of okra and you'll find a pretty great, easy recipe for okra in tamarind-tomato sauce.

That's all for today. Happy Monday; hope it's a great week.

Absolutely Perfect Bittersweet Chocolate Eggless Ice Cream

Nick Morganstern is an ice cream whisperer. He has tinkered with every aspect of his recipe: the sugar, the fat, the eggs, the churning method, even the serving temperature. The result is perfect. Back in the day, you could get a Morganstern scoop from the little cart outside Goat Town, in the East Village.

Now, Goat Town is closed. To get Morganstern's ice cream, you've got to make your way to Soho, to his new ice cream parlor - yes, black-and-white tile and chef's hats, it is a parlor - called, appropriately, Morganstern's Finest.

But back when Goat Town still had an ice cream cart out front, when Gilt Taste was still a thing, Melissa Clark went down to Goat Town and coaxed Nick Morganstern to tell her all his secrets, on camera. She learned about how he caramelized the sugar for his ice cream base. She discovered, with some surprise, that he skipped the eggs entirely. And then she tried his ice cream on video, and seriously, I had to hold myself back from ripping through the screen of my computer to take a lick.

Now Gilt Taste is gone, too, and Melissa told me sadly that so was the video. But I am a crazy stalker lady, and I really wanted to make this ice cream. Also, I wanted to watch the video again. And guess what?  The video still exists. The great cyber archive is worth something after all!

I watched the video a couple dozen times, scrawled a few learning notes in my recipe notebook, put all my eggs back into the fridge, and set out to copy the master. Fortunately, an old one of Melissa's columns offered a couple of tips and some basic proportions to get me started. I knew that Morganstern swears by powdered milk, but I know nothing about the proportions he uses. Easy enough: I skipped it, with Melissa's permission.

The rest was pretty straightforward. Ultimately, hacking the perfect eggless chocolate ice cream wasn't as hard as I expected it to be: it worked on my first try. What's in the tupperware in my freezer is creamy and custardy. It is smooth and silky, with not an ice crystal in sight. It is as chocolatey as anything can be without being one of those unsweetened chocolate bars. It also has citrus notes, which Melissa pointed out on camera and Nick attributed to the mint, but I think it's because of that dark amber caramel, which often tastes a bit like lemon zest when it's made well.

Last but not least, it has.no.eggs.

Why does this thrill me? Because, as anyone who makes ice cream knows, it is a pain to separate all those yolks. It is even more of a pain to use up half a dozen eggs on one batch of ice cream. And the egg whites - the egg whites! - I always seem to have them lying around, taunting me with quiet threats of going bad. It's a bit stressful. Ice cream should not be stressful; it should be happy. This one is.

Thank you to Melissa Clark and to the defunct Gilt Taste. Thanks to Nick Morganstern and to Goat Town, which is no longer. Thanks to the rain in DC, for making my herbs explode and giving me an excuse to pick an entire bundle of mint. Mostly, thanks to the ingredients chocolate and cream, for being plenty thick and extremely delicious and pretty much perfect, just like this ice cream is.

Absolutely Perfect Bittersweet Chocolate Eggless Ice Cream Developed with help from Nick Morganstern, via a Gilt Taste video, and Melissa Clark's 2010 recipe in the NYT Makes 2 pints

3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups heavy (whipping) cream
1 1/4 cups milk
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate (preferably 72% cacao), chopped
pinch of salt
2 ounces fresh mint

Have everything measured, chopped, and ready to go before you start making this ice cream. This is especially important for the cream, since you'll be using it to temper the caramel and need to have it available right when you need it.

Put sugar in a deep saucepan over medium heat. As the sugar melts, it will begin to clump; stir consistently, until it starts to feel like wet sand; the clumps will dissipate gradually.

Once the sugar has melted completely, it will start to caramelize and darken. Continue stirring and keep your eye on the heat. You're looking for a deep, dark amber color, but you don't want the sugar to burn. If you're nervous about how quickly the sugar is darkening, reduce the heat slightly. When the sugar is deep amber, pour half a cup of cream into the saucepan. It will bubble, then subside; stir constantly until the cream has incorporated. Continue to add cream by the 1/4 cup, stirring constantly as you add it. You're going to add all of the cream to the saucepan, but you need to do it gradually, or the caramel will separate.

Once you have a smooth cream-caramel base, the next step is to add the chocolate. If you have an immersion blender, you can add the chocolate right into the saucepan, stir until it's melted, then blend smooth. If you don't have one, put the chocolate in a blender or food processor and pulse until finely ground. Then add one cup of the hot cream mixture and the mint, and blend (carefully, to avoid explosions) until completely smooth. If you're nervous about bits of mint remaining, feel free to strain the chocolate mixture. Otherwise, pour the chocolate mixture back into the rest of the hot cream, add milk and salt, and stir until completely smooth. (At this point, you should have no issues with separation; however, if you do, you can always transfer the mixture into a food processor/blender or blend with an immersion blender.)

Transfer ice cream base to a large heat-safe bowl and transfer to the refrigerator to chill completely, at least overnight. When cold, pour into bowl of your ice cream machine and churn according to manufacturer’s directions. Transfer to a container and freeze until solid, at least 2 hours. Let sit at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes before serving, or in refrigerator for 15 to 30 minutes.

Summer Squash and Herb Gratin

The most obvious solution to the "problem" of those oversized, seed-filled summer squash is to make a gratin. When you slice those massive squash as thinly as possible, blanket them in something creamy, and top the pile with something crunchy, the so-called problem is a problem no more.

However, gratins cause a problem of their own (one that's slightly more real than a glut of summer produce): flooding. Summer squash are like 80% water, and if you aren't careful, they'll flood even your most carefully constructed casserole. If you've ever made a gratin with plain sliced squash, you know what I'm talking about. You've gotta serve it with a slotted spoon, and even then, the liquid pools in the pan and on the plate, ruining what could have been a good thing.

Most recipes that call for cooked squash tell you to salt and strain it in advance. This is good advice. But to really avoid any pooling whatsoever, you need to kick the draining process into overdrive.

Before making this gratin, I salted my squash aggressively and let it strain for a full hour. I then pressed it against the strainer to release even more liquid, and before layering it into the gratin dish, I picked up handfuls and squeezed them out even more. For about 2 1/2 pounds of squash, I ended up with 1 1/2 cups of liquid. That's 1 1/2 cups of liquid that didn't flood my gratin dish. Winning.

A side benefit of straining the squash so aggressively is that the process softens it, so it takes much shorter to cook. As a result, the gratin didn't taste like it had been cooked to death. It was soft and yielding, but still tasted fresh.

I kept the flavoring pretty simple - just a big handful of my favorite herbs from the garden: basil, mint, chives. If you've got some pesto in your fridge, you can use that instead.

Also, as good as an uber-creamy gratin can be, I wanted to keep this one light, for summer. That didn't stop me from making a bechamel, but I just made a half portion of it, and spread it on top of the casserole before topping with the breadcrumbs. The result was light enough to fall short of indulgent, but that layer of bechamel stays creamy underneath and gets crunchy on top: it makes the gratin, so don't skip it.

Summer Squash and Herb Gratin Serves 4 with leftovers, or 6 if served as a side dish

2 1/2 lbs. summer squash 1 tablespoon salt 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 1 cup fresh bread crumbs 1 medium-large yellow onion, diced 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs (I like a mixture of basil, mint, and chives, but you can use oregano, parsley, or whatever herbs you have) 3 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1 cup milk 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably fresh 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese Salt and pepper

Using a mandoline, slice the squash into 1/6-inch slices. Layer them into a large strainer, sprinkling the tablespoon of salt over the slices layer by layer until all the squash has been salted and layered into the strainer. Put the strainer over a bowl or in the sink, and set aside to drain for one hour. Once an hour has passed, press hard on the squash to release as much liquid as possible.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and lightly butter the inside of a roughly 9x13" baking dish.

Put 1 1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a saute pan set over medium heat. Add bread crumbs, and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden browned and crispy, 5-7 minutes. Strain into a small bowl.

In the same pan, add the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil and the diced onion. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 5 minutes. Transfer onions to the bottom of the baking dish.

Now, make the bechamel: in a small saucepan, melt butter until it bubbles. Add flour, and use a fork to stir until it has combined with the butter to form a creamy paste. Add the milk and a pinch of salt, turn the heat to medium-high, and bring the milk to a boil. Boil for about 1 minute, stirring regularly, until the sauce thickens. Then stir in the nutmeg and remove from the heat.

Assemble the gratin: Take handfuls of the strained squash, give them a strong squeeze to release their liquid, and layer or pile them into the baking dish, adding bits of chopped herbs as you go. You don't have to be fancy with the layers here: the whole thing gets covered up anyway. When you've layered in half the squash and herbs, sprinkle a couple tablespoons of the bread crumbs and one or two gratings of cheese over that layer. Shake a few grinds of pepper over that layer as well. Repeat with the remaining squash and herbs, top with a thin layer of cheese, then spoon and spread the bechamel over the top. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs and the remaining cheese onto the bechamel.

Transfer to the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Serve immediately, or let cool completely and store for up to 3 days. Reheat gratin in a 375-degree oven for at least 15 minutes before serving.