So, here’s the deal.

I like vegetables.

A whole lot. Like, when I was a kid, it was way easier to get me to eat my vegetables than it was to get me to eat most meats. (Bacon, lamb, trout fillets and good fried chicken were exceptions. I always loved those.)

In fact, for years, I was certain I didn’t like steak, because I associated that word with pieces of chewy, grey dried-out shoe-leather on a plate.

Yeah, lots of folks in my family overcooked meat.

But vegetables, man–even if I didn’t like them overcooked, if Mom served them to me raw, I was all over that. Green beans–cooked or raw–were my favorite. But carrots came a close second. Turnips, yeah!

So, let it suffice to say I’ve always been a big fan of the members of the vegetable kingdom.

But I’ve also always loved eggs.

Boiled, scrambled or fried, eggs have always had a fond place on my plate. This is probably because I grew up eating really good eggs from Grandma and Grandpa’s farm–I’m a great believer when it comes to truly fresh eggs from truly happy hens who spend their lives eating a varied diet of insects, greens, grain and kitchen scraps will convert most egg-haters into lovers of the beautiful hen-fruit.

But you know what’s weird?

I went through most of my childhood without ever having the two combined into one glorious dish.

No one in my family made omelets, and I’m pretty sure know one had even heard of a frittata.

And this is a sad thing.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager on a summer road trip/vacation to Monticello with my parents that I tasted a Western omelet at a roadside diner somewhere in rural Virginia. It was listed as a “specialty of the house” and was made with onions, bell peppers and sausage bits fried together then folded into the eggs with some really nice melty cheddar cheese. Well, actually, I think it was American, but that’s beside the point.

That was the first time vegetables and eggs were combined in my mouth and it rocked my world.

And so, I took to learning how to cook eggs and vegetables together.

Which leads to this post, which was supposed to be about making frittatas, except I forgot what I was doing about halfway through making mine and folded it and OOPS–made an omelet.

I’m sure you’ll all forgive me.

But it’s a weird omelet, in that it’s browned on the outside the way a frittata is, and I cooked the vegetables first in the pan I cooked the eggs in, like you do a fritatta. In fact, it’s a fritatta, except I didn’t flip it or stick it under the broiler, but instead half flipped it and half-folded it and damned if it didn’t turn out tasty as well.

This is another of my posts where I remind people not to fear failure in the kitchen. Failures often result in something interesting that you might not have discovered if you’d done everything right the first time. Besides, if it tastes good, is it really a failure, even if it didn’t come out as you meant it to? Besides, remember what Julia Child said about you being alone in the kitchen, so who’s to know if you make a mistake? No one if you don’t tell them, that’s who.

So, never apologize, even if your frittata turns out to be more omelet-like than you intended.

That said, do try making something like this recipe. It is quite good, and serves two to three people for a good brunch or a light lunch. I like it a lot with some sourdough bread toasted with great butter, but nothing is stopping you from replacing that with a salad, or even better, a salad with some garlic bread on the side.

Oh, and what to call this? The Frisky Frittata? The Almost Omelet? Plain old Eggs and Vegetables?

I like calling it Oeufs Verts, which is, of course, French for “Green Eggs” as in “Green Eggs and Ham.”

No, the eggs aren’t green themselves, nor is ham involved, but I like the sound of it, and if you use green vegetables (in this version, I used scallions and zucchini along with sweet red peppers) and herbs, I think that takes care of the “verts.”

Besides, this is a nice vegetarian dish and you cannot get more “green” than that, can you?

Besides, everything sounds better “en Francais.”

Oeufs Verts
Ingredients:

1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil or butter
2 scallions, cut into thin slices on the diagonal
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 small zucchini, cut julienne
1/2 small red bell pepper, cut julienne
4 eggs, well beaten, then blended with 1 tablespoon of milk
1 teaspoon butter
2 teaspoons or more to taste of freshly chopped fresh herbs–I used basil, Italian parsley and tarragon
3 tablespoons grated sharp cheddar cheese or any strong cheese of your choice

Method:

Heat the olive oil or butter in a heavy-bottomed 9″ in diameter non-stick or well seasoned cast iron pan on low heat.

Add the scallions and sprinkle with salt then season to taste with freshly ground black pepper, and cook until it’s just beginning to turn golden. Add the zucchini and peppers and cook, stirring until the onions are browning and the edges of the zucchini are brown and the peppers show a bit of browning action, too.

Add the teaspoon of butter, and melt, turning pan this way and that to distribute the melted butter and to spread out the sauteed vegetables. Use a spatula if you need one to get the vegetables into a uniform single layer on the bottom of the pan.

Pour in the eggs off heat, then put them back on heat again and let them begin to set on the bottom. Sprinkle with the herbs.

As the eggs cook, push the cooked edges toward the center of the pan with a spatula and then tip the pan to let the uncooked egg slide toward the outer edges. Keep doing this until there is a uniform layer of cooked egg on the bottom and most of the inside is starting to look a bit dry.

Sprinkle on the cheese and then carefully slide your spatula (A large vinyl fish spatula works best for this) under the eggs and lift it up, tipping the pan away from the eggs as you lift. Carefully fold the eggs over, so that you overfold it slightly, letting the last of the uncooked egg and some of the cheese to hit the hot bottom of the pan. Set it back on the stove and cook for about thirty seconds to one minute longer, then remove your mostly half-moon shaped eggs and vegetables from the pan and set it on a serving plate.

Cut it into wedges to serve.

You can saute any vegetables you like in this dish, just adjust cooking times accordingly. I like lacinato kale sauteed with onions and garlic in this dish and if you use a lot of it, it really makes the eggs green.

One of my goals in writing this blog has always been to educate anyone I can reach with my words on how to cook delicious food in their own kitchens, food that is as good or better than what can be found in restaurants. I personally believe that cooking whole, fresh foods in our kitchens can help reverse the epidemics of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease that has begun to run rampant in American culture. And, I believe that cooking and eating at home can be less expensive than eating fast food, while delivering better nutrition, and thus can help boost food security in these times of economic hardship.

Food security is an issue that is close to my heart; I grew up in West Virginia and when my Dad was laid off of his job at Union Carbide for a year, and our savings account was drained, I remember not having much to eat. That is, until my Mom’s parents–my Grandma and Grandpa who had a farm–came to visit. Seeing a nearly bare cupboard, they brought us bags and bags of home-canned fruits and vegetables, and boxes of frozen pork, chicken and beef, as well as dozens of freshly laid eggs.

I will never forget how good that food tasted after eating very little but beans and cornbread for weeks. And I have always been generous and shared food with my less fortunate neighbors since then.

That’s why I work with a local non-profit organization called Community Food Initiatives here in Athens. CFI works to boost local food security in Athens and the surrounding areas by collecting donations of food and money at the Athens Farmer’s Market. The money collected there is then spent there among the vendors, and all of the food is then donated to local agencies such as food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless and domestic violence shelters, so that those who don’t have enough money for food have fresh, local, nutrient dense produce to eat.

The CFI also teaches classes in how to can, how to grow gardens, how to compost and how to grow fruit trees. I may end up teaching a series of classes on basic vegetable and fruit cookery; one of the issues that has consistently come up for the CFI is that community members often don’t know what to do with some of our most often donated vegetables such as greens, eggplant and summer or winter squash.

Which is how we come to the subject of this post.

On Thursday, while volunteering at the CFI Donation Station where we inventory the food that came in and divide it up to be picked up by folks from the various agencies we serve, it turned out that there was a surplus of eggplants, summer squashes of all sorts, tomatoes, onions and basil.

I decided to take some home and make a big batch of ratatouille to be given to The Athens Community Church which hosts a weekly free dinner on Friday night. It turns out that one of my neighbors is involved with the small food pantry that the church maintains, as well as being one of the cooks for the dinner, so I figured I could make the food and then take it straight to her house to donate it to the church.

So, about oh, I guess ten pounds or so of the aforementioned vegetables and herbs came home with me and I ended up spending a happy hour sauteing, slicing, peeling and mincing while a huge pot of increasingly headily scented stew bubbled on the stove.

Which, of course, is what ratatouille is–a vegetarian stew popular in Provence, France. Technically, basil isn’t used in the stew–parsley is, but I have to admit to always using basil in mine. I figure I’m not in France, so who cares, right? And, usually only zucchini is used in the stew, but well, I put yellow crookneck, zucchini, pattypan and some sort of baseball-sized round summer squashes in it, because that is what I was given.

And, usually, the eggplants used are the big fat European kind, but all we had left over was the long, thin, white or lavender Japanese varieties and the small, striped Indian ones. Which is fine with me–I honestly like the flavor and texture of the smaller eggplants better than the large ones anyway–they are less bitter and have fewer seeds while retaining the unctuous, smooth consistency in the flesh just like their larger deep purple cousins.

After adding a head of garlic and some cooking oil from my larder the donated vegetables and herbs were quickly turned into two and a half gallons of fragrant, sweet, heady stew which for all that it tastes rich, is low in fat and calories, but high in fibre and vitamins.

When my neighbor brought my storage container back after the dinner today, she was smiling. The ratatouille was a hit, so I’ll be sending along the recipe with her to give out among the diners. It even turned out that a vegetarian had shown up for the dinner and they were happy to have something so good for her to eat.

Anyway, here it is–my version of ratatouille–a dish that can be made for not so much money in the late summer when every one of its ingredients is not only in season and plentiful, but is actually glutting up the gardens of farmers and gardeners alike. But even though it is easy to make and easy on the pocketbook, ratatouille always tastes divine, no matter if you serve it hot or cold. (Oh, and don’t worry–I’m not giving a recipe that makes enough to feed a small army like I made on Thursday. Only enough for an average sized family of four to six.)

Ratatouille
Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large sweet onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt
1 sweet red, yellow or orange bell pepper, cored and diced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup slightly sweet red wine
3 long, thin Asian eggplants, ends cut off, then cut in half longitudinally, then sliced thinly (about 1/4″ thick)
2 medium-sized zucchini, ends cut off and thinly sliced (1/4″ thick)
1 medium-sized yellow summer squash, ends cut off, cut in half longitudinally, then sliced thinly (1/4″ thick)
1 pound fresh tomatoes, skinned, seeded, cored and crushed with your hands
1/2 cup minced fresh basil
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Heat the olive oil in the bottom of a large, heavy pot. Enameled cast iron is awesome for this, but a plain old stainless steel copper-bottomed soup pot works just as well.

Add the onion slices and sprinkle with salt and cook, stirring, until the onions turn pale yellow. Add the pepper, stir and cook until the onion is a nice deep gold and the pepper bits have started to brown slightly. Add the garlic, and cook until all is fragrant and the onions start to stick a bit to the pot.

Deglaze the pot with the wine and allow the alcohol to boil away.

Add the eggplant and squash and cook, stirring until the vegetables are soft and the squash have started to brown slightly. Add the tomatoes and their juice, and turn down the heat to simmer until the stew has thickened and is somewhat like a jam in consistency.

Stir in the basil and either serve immediately, hot, or you can cool it down, refrigerate it overnight and serve it cold. In either case, it is wonderfully delicious. Ratatouille can also be used as a pasta sauce, and though it is terribly untraditional to do so, I have to say that spaghetti twirled with this stew is mighty tasty. Definitely worth breaking rules to eat!

What the heck is Barbara on about now, readers are wondering?

Not only is she a day late and a dollar short, she’s nattering on about garlic leeks.

What are garlic leeks, anyway? Well, depending on which way you look at it, they’re either garlic or leeks or both, but it’s not likely you’ll find them in a grocery store. Nope. More likely, they’ll be at a farmer’s market, and only in the early spring, when the green garlic is in season.

Now, THAT should give you a clue as to the identity of my garlic leeks. They’re only around during the season of green garlic–which is to say in the spring, when the garlic shoots are up before they form heads. Green garlic looks rather like scallions, and is about the size of large scallions, and tastes just like garlic, but milder.

Garlic leeks–well, they look just about like a leek. Okay, no just about about it–they look exactly like leeks, only the dark green parts of the leaves are more tender.

Give up? The truth is, these garlic leeks are green elephant garlic. Just like their smaller green garlic cousins, the green elephant garlic looks nothing at all like a garlic, but the scent of it gives it away. There’s not even a hint of leek’s subtle onion fragrance–just a whisper, a tantalizing freshness of baby garlic.

For the record, elephant garlic is not truly a garlic, but is more closely related to leeks. So their morphological similarities make perfect sense. But, even though elephant garlic is basically a sort of leek, it lacks the flavor and scent of leeks entirely, and eventually, forms huge bulbs made of amazingly large individual cloves that taste like a milder, more tame version of garlic.

Rich Tomsu of Rich Gardens Organic Farm brought his garlic leeks to my attention last Saturday at the Athens Farmer’s Market. He and Ann are trying something new–this is the first time they’ve harvested green elephant garlic and marketed them as a type of leek–and he wanted me to try them and let them know what I thought of them. So, of course, I bought a couple and promised to use them just as I would use leeks in a recipe and get back to him on how they performed.

Of course I brought some home, intending to use them in a soup that I would usually cook with leeks to see how similar and different these garlic leeks would be in the kitchen.

The first soup that came to mind for me was a flageolet bean soup that I usually cook with ham, and garnish with sauteed mushrooms and kale. (Flageolet are beautiful pale celedon green colored beans from France that are traditionally used in cassoulet. They are tender, sweet and partially break down when cooked with plenty of liquid. If you cannot find them, you can use navy beans, but they aren’t nearly as nice.)

This time around, however, I went totally vegetarian and made the soup with a mushroom-based broth which I spiked with dry sherry and let the garlic leeks be the main flavoring.

I still used the mushroom and lacinato kale garnish, and the soup turned out to be just as tasty and delicious as it is with its usual ham. If I were to choose between them, I believe I’d pick this version as my favorite–the garlic leeks, like regular leeks, after cooking in the soup, partially broke down along with the flageolet beans and made a thick, unctuous broth.

The leeks also gave the soup a deep, sweet fragrance that was both garlicky and leekish–and utterly divine. Even Zak liked it well enough for two servings, and Morganna and Brittney ate the half-pot I gave them for three days running with great glee and gusto. Kat eyed it suspiciously at first, but after taking a tiny sip of the broth, was convinced to eat an entire small bowl of it by herself.

So, the next time I see Rich, I have to tell him his garlic leeks are a definite hit, and then, I’ll have to buy some more and figure out other great dishes in which to cook them!

Garlic Leek and Flageolet Soup
Ingredients:

10 dried shiitake (Chinese black) mushrooms
1 quart boiling water
2-3 large garlic leeks
2 tablespoons butter, ghee or olive oil
2 stalks of celery, strings removed, then thinly sliced
3 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 fresh or dried bay leaves
3/4 cup dry sherry
1 pound flageolet beans, picked over and rinsed
water as needed
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon leaves, crumbled
2 tablespoons butter or ghee
3-6 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, caps cut into thin slices
1/2 pound lacinato kale, leaves washed, dried and cut into thin slices across the central vein
salt and black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon each fresh thyme and rosemary leaves

Method:

Put dried shiitake mushrooms into a large bowl and cover with the boiling water. Cover the bowl with a plate and set aside to steep for at least twenty minutes, while you prep the rest of the ingredients. When finished steeping, remove the mushrooms, squeeze the liquid out of them and set them aside. Strain the liquid and reserve it. Remove the mushroom stems and cut the caps into thin slices.

Clean the garlic leeks: cut them in half from the root end to the stem end. Rinse in cold water, using your thumb to separate the layers of the white and light green parts a bit to let the water into all of them as deeply as possible so as to flush out as much grit as possible. Rinse well and let dry before slicing thinly up to the dark green part of the leaves. Discard the tough darker green parts.

Melt the first measure of butter, ghee or olive oil in a heavy deep soup pot over medium heat. Add the leek slices and cook, stirring, until they turn a nice golden, lightly browned color. Add the celery and carrots at this point, as well as the bay leaves, and keep stirring and cooking until the leeks are a dark golden brown with some darker spots, the celery has turned golden and the carrots are starting to look slightly translucent. Add the sliced rehydrated mushroom caps, and cook, stirring for another minute before adding the sherry. Allow the alcohol go cook off, then add the mushroom broth, the tarragon and the beans. Add water to just cover the beans in about 3/4 of an inch of water. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, cover the pot and simmer until the beans are done, adding water as necessary.

While the soup is cooking, melt the second measure of butter, ghee or oil in a heavy saute pan. Add the fresh mushrooms, and cook, stirring and tossing until the mushrooms are softened, fragrant and golden in color. Add the kale, and cook, stirring, until the leaves wilt and the shade of green deepens and brightens considerably. Add the fresh herbs as soon as the kale is done and remove from the fire, stirring to combine everything well.

When the beans are finished cooking, scrape the contents of the saute pan into the soup pot and stir. Bring to a simmer once more, then season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Then, serve it forth!

So, when I describe the process of this dish: Rabbit Braised in Marsala with Wild Mushrooms, I am going to have to rely simply on my words alone to get the point across. We shall see how it goes, shall we?

The first part of this post is a description of how you would go about braising a rabbit so that you may end up with a tender, flavorful, juicy creature whose flesh is easily pierced with a fork and flaked. You can leave the meat on the bone after it is done, or you can easily pick and shred it as I do for the recipe that will follow this instructional essay.

Braising is a very simple cooking method whereby meats and/or vegetables are cooked in a liquid until they are fork tender. Fork-tender does not only mean that you can easily pierce the meat with the tines of a fork; it also means that it easily slides off of the fork. That means that with minimal effort, such as by shaking your hand, the meat will slide right off of the fork. Often, you will find that meat is easily enough pierced with a fork, but it still has enough toughness in the muscle fibers that it clings tightly to the fork. This means that it is not done–it is, instead, almost done. Keep cooking until the meat will let the fork slide out of it just as easily as it let it slide in.

Braising is similar to stewing, but in general, braised dishes are made with larger cuts of meat or whole vegetables, while stews are made with meats and vegetables cut into roughly bite-sized pieces. Braises also tend to use less liquid than stews; usually the meat is barely covered with liquid, and in fact, some bits of the meat may stick up out of the liquid. Both braising and stewing involve simmering the foods to be cooked in liquid slowly over low, even heat. This slow cooking process gives tougher cuts of meat a long time to become tender, and it allows the flavors of all of the ingredients to combine in the cooking liquid to make a truly delicious sauce.

Braising a rabbit is a little more involved than braising beef or lamb or even chicken, and it has a great deal to do with the fact that the meat of a rabbit has very little fat–it is the lowest in fat of any terrestrial domestic farm animal, and it is very high in protein. Because of this lack of fat, the meat can very easily become tough, and that is the last thing you want. The solution to this problem is quite simple, when it comes to braising rabbit meat–you must make certain that it never boils. It should instead, cook on a very low, constant simmer until it is truly fork tender.

I cannot emphasize enough how delicious and juicy the meat of a rabbit will be when cooked in this way. Cooked at a bare simmer–almost poached, really–rabbit retains all of its flavor and is so moist and tender that you cannot imagine a better meat. You want to make certain that you do not overcook the meat–that means you do not want it to cook until it falls off of the bone–at that point it is more cooked than you want, and the meat will lose some of its delectable texture and moist nature. Only cook it until a fork easily pierces it and then slides right back out of it; you test the rabbit by poking your fork into the thickest meat of the thigh. When it is done, you can remove it from the cooking juice if you like, so that you can reduce the liquid and turn it into a sauce, or you can serve the rabbit without a sauce.

As I mentioned before, you can leave braised rabbit meat on the bone, or, if you are going to make a sauce for pasta, which the following recipe is based upon, then you can pick it from the bones. The best way to remove the meat from teh bones is by hand–just let it cool until you can touch it and go at it, keeping in mind that rabbit bones are fine and thin and can easily hide themselves in the shreds of meat. That is why I use my fingers only when working with rabbit meat–that way I can feel for the bones as I go.

So, now, let me give you the procedure for braising a rabbit.

First, take your rabbit, which can be cut up into serving pieces or whole, and wash it well in cold running water. Take note of how well bled the carcass was–if there is a lot of blood in evidence on the rabbit carcass, you are going to have to do as the Chinese do when making stocks and blanch the meat. This is done quite simply. Put the rabbit into a pot with cold water just covering it. Bring to a gentle simmer and let it cook for about fifteen minutes. During this time, you will see all sorts of scummy bits and stringy matter coming out of the rabbit. This is the blood as well as some marrow coming from the bones and body tissues.

After fifteen minutes, pull the rabbit bits out with tongs and set them in a colander in your sink. Rinse them off well with cold water, scrubbing them gently with your fingers to get all of the scummy icky bits of old blood off of them. Set them aside, then pour the water out of the cooking pot and wash the pot well. Rinse it well, too, dry it, and -then- you are ready to start your braising process. (And when that rabbit is done braising, well, then Cinderella, you may go to the ball.)

Cut up your aromatic vegetables–carrots, celery and onion are usual, as is garlic–and saute them lightly in butter or olive oil. When they are cut as well as you like, you can, if you wish, brown the rabbit, although I tend not to. If you don’t wish to brown the rabbit, just put it in the pot over the vegetables, and immediately pour in the liquid you wish to cook it in. This can be wine, beer, fruit juice, tomatoes in their juice, stock, water or any combination thereof. What is important is that you just barely cover the rabbit with liquid. Season gently with salt and pepper, and add a bay leaf and whatever herbs you like.

Then, bring to a bare simmer, and once there are shimmery bubbles coming to the surface and breaking only now and again, turn the heat down carefully to maintain this heat.

Then, cook for only how long it takes for your rabbit to become fork tender. Generally, it takes around 1 1/2 to 2 hours until it is properly fork tender.

Now that you know how to braise rabbit, let me tell you how to make the dish I presented at the Toyota Farm to Table event on Saturday. It is based very much on one of my favorite Italian pasta dishes of all time: Pappardelle with Rabbit and Porcini Ragu. I had it once in a small restaurant in Boston’s Italian neighborhood and once up on Federal Hill in Providence, Rhode Island, and both times, I was smitten with the rich mushroomy fragrance of the sauce and the succulent rabbit meat, all wound around the wide ribbons of hand-made pasta.

My recipe is a very Frenchified version of that very traditional Italian dish. Because of the logistics of holding pasta which are complex and subject to failure, I chose to serve the braised, shredded rabbit over garlic mashed potatoes instead of noodles. The combination was fantastic, I must say, though my finished dish resembled the original only in the fact that both contained rabbit meat, wine and mushrooms.

I know that there are many steps in making the sauce–and for that, I refuse to apologize. The flavor of the finished dish is worth all of the work that goes into making the sauce. Besides, while you make this with one or two rabbits, imagine what I did, making this dish out of over twenty pounds of rabbit, eight pounds of mushrooms and around five pounds of vegetables with three bottles of Marsala wine. That might make you feel a bit better while you watch the rabbit stock reduce for what seems like hours, and simultaneously saute mushrooms and caramelize onions and make roux to finish the sauce.

Braised Rabbit With Marsala Wine and Wild Mushrooms
Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup diced onions
1 cup sliced celery
1 cup peeled and sliced carrots
1/3 cup peeled and sliced parsnips (optional, but it adds a lot of flavor to the stock)
3 cloves garlic peeled
2 rabbits, either whole or cut into serving pieces, blanched as described above if needed
2 cups Marsala wine
6 large dried shiitake mushrooms, also known as Chinese black mushrooms
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
4 tablespoons butter divided
8 ounces fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and caps sliced thinly
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups thinly sliced onions
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 cups Marsala wine, divided
1 1/2 tablespoon tomato paste
Kitchen Bouquet or thick soy sauce as needed
roux brun made with 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup flour
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Method:

Heat olive oil in the bottom of your stockpot or large dutch oven on medium heat. When it is hot, add the onions, celery, carrots, parsnips and garlic cloves, and cook, stirring until the onion is translucent and everything is fragrant.

Lay the rabbit down on top of the vegetables, and pour the first two cups of Marsala wine over everything. Add enough water to just barely cover the rabbits. Add the dried shiitake mushrooms, bay leaf, the first measure of thyme, the teaspoon of salt and the freshly ground pepper. Bring to a nice slow simmer. Do not allow to boil. Turn the heat down and allow to cook uncovered for 1 1/2 hours at the same slow simmer. Test the rabbit meat–if it is properly fork tender as described above, remove it from the pot, drizzling a bit of the cooking liquid over it to keep it moist as it cools.

Turn the heat up on the liquid in the pot and bring to a boil. Cook the stock down until it is reduced by half.

While the stock is reducing, melt the 1 tablespoon of the first measure of butter in a saute pan over medium high heat and allow to become foamy. Then, add 1/4 of the fresh shiitake mushrooms, and cook, stirring until they are lightly browned and tender and very fragrant and delicious. Set aside in a bowl. Repeat for the remaining mushrooms, using one tablespoon of butter and 1/4 of the mushrooms for each pan.

Take the second measure of butter and melt it in the same pan you cooked the mushrooms in. Add the onions, salt lightly and cook until they are a deep golden color. Add the garlic and keep cooking and stirring until the onions are a medium brown color and the garlic is golden and fragrant. Deglaze the pan with 1/2 cup of the second measure of Marsala wine. Add the onions and garlic to the mushrooms which are set aside.

The remaining 1 1/2 cups of Marsala wine goes into a small saucepan. Over medium heat, simmer until it reduces by half. Turn off heat and set aside.

When the stock has reduced by half, set a colander over a large bowl, and scoop all of the vegetables out of the stock. Squeeze out the dried mushrooms into the bowl, and then squish the cooked vegetables in the colander so that all of their juices run into the bowl. Discard the dried mushrooms and vegetables, rinse out the colander and line it with cheesecloth. Pour the remaining stock into the bowl, straining it into the cheesecloth lined colander. Wash out your pot and put it back on low heat. Add the strained stock, the reduced Marsala wine and bring to a boil.

Heat your roux up in a small saute pan until it is bubbling. Scrape the roux into the boiling stock and whisk like mad until it thickens nicely. Whisk in the tomato paste until it is completely combined. Stir in the sauteed mushrooms and caramelized onions. If the sauce is too pale, add a teaspoon or so of Kitchen Bouquet or thick soy sauce.

Remove the rabbit meat from the bones and add to the sauce, making certain to not accidentally slip any bones into the pot.

Stir the thyme and rosemary into the sauced rabbit, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve over wide noodles or mashed potatoes–I prefer garlic mashed potatoes. (And yes, I will post a recipe for those next week. I promise.)

This should feed up to six or eight hungry adults.

Salade composee translates into English as “Composed Salad,” which makes vegetables sound like musical notes or something; Translations aside, what it really means is that you make or compose a salad out of many different ingredients, some cooked, some raw, which showcase different flavors, colors and textures. All of the ingredients are cut in shapes which enhance their flavors, and each ingredient is tossed in the vinaigrette dressing separately, allowing the cook to marinate each ingredient for as long or as short a time period as needed to create the flavor and texture profile desired by the cook.

Summer is the perfect time to make a salade composee, but truly, you can make one in the spring, fall or winter as well. You just need to collect an array of seasonal vegetables, fruits, nuts and salad greens, and if you like, cheese and meat, and prepare them as you wish in order to get the flavors and textures you wish to present to your guests. Then, make a vinaigrette that will enhance the flavors of the different components of the salad, and toss each ingredient separately in it, then, right before serving, place the ingredients on the plate or in the bowl in an artful, pleasing fashion that shows the different colors and shapes of the ingredients to the greatest advantage.

A salade composee can be a first course, as this one was, or it can be an entire meal. It can be light or hearty, all depending on what ingredients you choose to combine.

This salad is made of tender mixed leaf lettuces, a sweet, yet tangy Rose de Berne tomato, finely julienned purple and orange carrots, dear, tender little haricot vert (thin French green beans) blanched in broth and garlic, sugar-glazed English walnuts, and fresh chevre. I tossed everything separately with a honey-Dijon tarragon vinaigrette, some ingredients just before serving, and some an hour before dinner.

You could use plain old orange carrots in this salad, but the purple ones look so pretty when cut into thin julienne bits–orange sticks with burgundy-purple tips. Carrots are sweet and very crunchy, so I cut them very thin and very small in order to make them more delicate in flavor, as well as to show off the coloration to greatest effect. You see, in this variety of purple carrots, the purple is only apparent in the skin and in the flesh just below it, so when you peel the carrots, do so very gently and lightly, so as to remove only the skin, without taking a large layer of flesh beneath it, thus preserving the purple coloration. Then, in order to do a very fine julienne, cut the carrot into thin, diagonal slices, then stack two to four slices up, and cut those into thin sticks.

You could blanch the carrots if you wanted them to have a more softened, velvety texture, but I wanted them to retain their crisp nature. I tossed the carrots with the dressing right before serving the salad so the carrot flavor shone through.

On the other hand, the haricot vert needed to be blanched. In order to give them a bit of a flavor boost, I simmered garlic in about a cup and a half of vegetable stock until it softened and then tossed in the beans which had been topped and tailed (they have very little in the way of strings, so you just need to slice or pluck the stem end and the string end off of the beans) and left at their original length. After the beans simmered for about three minutes, they had softened to a slight velvety texture on the skin while retaining crunch on the interior. They also had a light garlic flavor. Then, I cooled them quickly in a bowl of ice, and then tossed them in the vinaigrette as soon as they were cool, so they could soak up plenty of the dressing’s tang which enhanced the very green flavor inherent to the beans themselves.

The tomatoes I cut into lotus blossoms. This looks complicated, but it really isn’t. I didn’t have anyone in the kitchen to photograph the process, so hopefully I can describe it adequately. You take a whole, clean, dry tomato, and if you wish, you can core it first. Rose de Berne tomatoes have small cores, so I didn’t bother with it. Then, with a very sharp, pointed paring knife, you plunge the point into the tomato at an angle (it should look like this: / ) along the equator of the fruit. The knife should sink to about the center of the tomato–and no farther. Pull it out and then make another cut against the first cut, also at an angle, and at the same depth, but like this, instead: \ . The two should meet in the middle and make an upside down “V” shape. You continue in this way, connecting all of the cuts all around the middle of the tomato until you have made a series of cuts that look like this: WWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Then, you grasp the tomato at the top and bottom and gently pull it apart twisting it slightly to the left or right as you go.

And voila–you have two lovely lotus blossoms. (I guess I should do a post in the future showing this with photographs, huh?)

You can do it with any size or shape of tomato–cherry tomatoes done this way make a beautiful garnish for any dish.

I marinated the tomatoes for about a half hour in the vinaigrette so they would take on plenty of its delicious flavor.

Now, for the walnuts. Sugaring nuts is a great way to give them added texture, flavor and color, but it is a bit tricky.

Start with about a cup of untoasted walnut pieces, and place them in a heavy-bottomed non-stick frying pan. Heat them up on medium heat, shaking them until they begin to toast–they will start darkening on the edges and the scent of walnut will start wafting through the air.

Sprinkle about 2/3 cup of white sugar over the walnuts and shake the pan to get the sugar to sift down evenly over the nuts to the bottom of the pan. Using a spatula or spoon that are safe for a non-stick pan and stir the nuts and sugar together. The sugar will start to melt and darken–and can start burning easily. Regulate the heat by picking up the pan and pulling it away from the heat–if the sugar starts to darken too much, take it off the heat, shake and stir vigorously to cool everything down a bit. Then, put t back on the heat a bit to get the sugar melting again. Cook, stirring, shaking and moving on and off the heat, until the nuts are coated with a shiny coat of caramelized sugar. (You can use more sugar if you want, but no less than 2/3 cup–less than that and the coating won’t be as regular.

Scrape the nuts out of the pan onto a silpat lined counter, baking pan or plate, or if you have no silpats, use a sheet of parchment paper. Allow the nuts to cool briefly, until you can touch them with your fingertips, and separate them so they aren’t stuck together in clumps. (Or, you can use two forks to pull them apart and save your fingertips from burns.) The nuts are great in salads, but they also make great snacks, coatings for cheese spreads or canapes, and fillings for dates or sweetmeats.

I tossed the nuts in the dressing just before serving so that the crisp sugar coating stayed crispy.

The lettuce leaves were tossed just before service, too–I didn’t want them to wilt.

And the cheese was tossed about ten minutes before serving so that it got some of the taste of the dressing, but not an overwhelming amount–I still wanted the tangy natural flavor of the cheese to stand out.

And then, I put it all together as you can see in the photograph above.

Use whatever you like in your salade composee–raw pears, roasted beets and toasted almonds would be great together with bleu cheese and lightly bitter greens like endive mixed with some sweeter lettuces. Sauteed summer squashes mixed with raw tomatoes, halved kalamata olives and raw sweet red peppers would also be delicious, especially with some crisp romaine and some shredded Parmesan cheese and maybe some toasted pine nuts.

The possibilities are endless.

Here is the recipe I used for my Honey-Dijon Vinaigrette with Tarragon–it would go well with the first alternate combination I mentioned above. For the second one with the summer squashes, I would use a balsamic vinaigrette with basil–substitute balsamic for the cider vinegar, use about a quarter teaspoon of anchovy paste instead of the mustard–or, leave them both out, add a tiny quarter teaspoon of tomato paste, and about three tablespoons of fresh, minced basil leaves. You could add a tiny bit of minced fresh garlic to it as well.

Honey-Dijon Vinaigrette With Tarragon
Ingredients:

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar (I used some homemade cider vinegar from a farmer here in Athens–it was light and delicious–better than the usual stuff from the grocery store!)
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons honey
2 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon leaves
salt and pepper to taste

Method:

I’m lazy. I don’t whisk my vinaigrette. I put everything except the salt and pepper into a clean jar that will hold it all, and screw the lid on and then shake vigorously. It’s easier on my wrists this way. Then, I open the jar, taste the dressing and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste and then close it up, give it another good shake and voila! Vinaigrette!

It will keep nicely in the fridge for about a week if you have any left over.