an open cupboard

If you’re like me, you’re probably content to eat any form of pasta for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so any leftovers are a rarity. My husband, A, is very fond of cooking and eating pasta, but he usually cooks the amount he’d like to eat, rather than the amount two people (and one dog) are capable of eating in one go. As a result, we often have leftover pasta sitting in the fridge. I’m the first to admit that I love even cold pasta, but it’s a little less appealing than the freshly cooked, steaming hot variety, with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and freshly ground pepper. So… what do you do with leftover spaghetti?

A friend of A’s once taught me a great Italian trick for using up the remains of last night’s pasta: spaghetti frittata for breakfast. Open the fridge and take out a bowl of cold, lifeless, leftover spaghetti. Chop it up, and mix it with beaten eggs, cheese, herbs, and spices. Fry the whole thing in a cast-iron pan and finish it off under the broiler. It makes a great breakfast, possibly topped with a little creme fraiche and some salad on the side. It makes a nice dinner as well. It’s also extremely versatile. You can throw in bits of cured meat, add creme fraiche or sour cream to the batter, experiment with different herbs such as fresh oregano and thyme, use different types of cheeses, or add in olives or sun-dried tomatoes. The possibilities are endless, limited only by the bounds of good taste and whatever you’ve got in your pantry. My version uses ingredients I had lying around, including some leftover black-eyed peas. They add a pleasantly soft texture that contrasts with the chewy pasta. Lightly crushed coriander seeds add some crunch and a lemony flavor that goes well with the fennel.

Spaghetti Frittatta with Black-eyed Peas and Fennel

1-2 TBS butter
1/2 chopped onion
1 chopped spring onion
2 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 diced fennel
leftover pasta, coarsely chopped
leftover black-eyed peas
minced parsley
minced fennel fronds
3-4 beaten eggs
salt and pepper to taste
paprika to taste
1-2 tsp coriander seeds
grated or sliced cheese (goat, cheddar, gruyere, pecorino, etc.)

- Saute the onions and garlic on a medium to low flame in a large pan. When transluscent, add the fennel.
- Season onion mixture with coriander seeds and stir.
- In a bowl, mix the pasta with the beans, herbs, and eggs. Optionally, mix in some grated cheese.
- Season with salt, pepper, and paprika.
- Pour pasta mixture into pan, and mix to more or less evenly distribute onions. Smooth into a pancake shape and allow to cook for several minutes.
- Turn on broiler and grate or slice cheese on top of frittatta.
- Turn off flame and place frittatta under the broiler until cheese bubbles and frittatta is lightly golden.

Makes breakfast for 2-3, along with a fresh salad, or grilled fennel with olive oil.

Fat, purple asparagus, freshly harvested. Bright green fava beans in their pods. Fragrant green garlic and creamy King trumpet mushrooms. The spring bounty of the Berkeley farmer’s market is a fine one. Warm weather and crisp spring vegetables seem to beckon a dinner of light, small dishes. Fresh spring produce inspires with its beauty and promise of robust flavor. A simple dish celebrates these virtues by allowing the vegetables to speak for themselves, without being muffled by dominant sauces or meats.

My original idea, hatched on a long train ride home, was to make a dish of fava beans, another of asparagus, and a variation on Elise’s chard tzatziki. But time and patience are limited on a week day, while laziness is not, so the tzatziki was postponed for another dinner. I settled on just the fava beans and the asparagus. The fava beans didn’t turn out the way I expected, so I won’t bother posting the recipe here. The asparagus, however, were quite a different matter. I paired them with the King trumpet mushrooms, frying them in butter and sliced garlic. A splash of sherry adds a wonderful dimension to the mushrooms, which greedily soak up the sherry flavor. A few thin slices of naturally cured salami added a meaty, slightly tart flavor and some shavings of Gruyere rounded it out. Ah… thank the gods for spring.

Asparagus with Mushrooms

1 TBS butter
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2-3/4 lb. fresh purple asparagus, roughly chopped
3-4 large King trumpet mushrooms, sliced into rounds
a splash of sherry
a bit of dry cured salami, sliced into matchsticks
a few thin shavings of cheese, cut with a vegetable peeler (I used Gruyere, feel free to use Parmesan or Pecorino)

- In a large pan on medium to low heat, melt the butter and saute the garlic until transluscent.
- Add the asparagus and stir. When the asparagus begins to brighten, add the mushrooms and stir.
- Add butter if necessary. Cover the pan for a minute or two.
- Add the sherry and cover the pan. Cook for another couple of minutes and remove the cover.
- Add salami matchsticks, stir, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Turn off the flame and sprinkle cheese over the top.

Serves 4

Like death and taxes, it’s a generally accepted truth that tofu is bland. Tofu is considered a flavorless block of protein, providing texture and nutrition for vegetarians, hippies, and trendy hipsters. Rarely is tofu considered an ingredient on its own. Most often it’s a substitute for the animal-derived foods it replaces, such as chicken, beef, and pork. An unfair analogy, if you think about it. Why do we compare the flavor and texture of a bean-based food to those of an animal food? We don’t equate black-eyed peas with chicken, hummus with steak, Boston baked beans with pork chops. Tofu is a food in its own right, we ought to treat it as such. And–don’t laugh–I’ve always been convinced that tofu has a distinct flavor of its own, if a very subtle one.

Today I tested my hypothesis. Despite my natural proclivity to spend Saturday morning lazing around the house, I finally managed to get to the Berkeley Farmer’s market. (As soon as the sun shows its face, the good citizens of the Bay Area have no choice but to immediately engage in all forms of outdoor activities, before the warm rays disappear behind another unseasonably overcast sky.) I was just in time to buy the last two little blocks of tofu from the Hodo Soy Beanery, a local organic producer of all things soy. Among other things, I also purchased a block of lightly salted Spring Hill Jersey cultured butter (so good, you can pretty much eat it on its own).

Back at home, I decided to prepare the tofu very simply so as to bring out its natural flavor. What could be more honest than sliced tofu cutlets cooked in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper? Almost not a recipe at all, frankly. The result was creamy on the inside with a slightly crisp golden crust, and a pleasant soybean flavor. Quite good. And tasting quite distinctively of tofu.

Not Really a Recipe for Fried Tofu

1 small block of the freshest, yummiest organic tofu you can find, sliced
1-2 TBS butter
salt and pepper to taste

- Fry the tofu in the butter until golden on both sides. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 2-3

I’ve been jonesing for a fire-roasted eggplant with yogurt and tahini sauce ever since I left Israel. This dish appears in myriad variations at almost every trendy Middle Eastern fusion restaurant in greater Tel Aviv. And with good reason–it’s delicious.

Ordinarily, the dish is prepared with a “baladi” eggplant, an Arabic word which roughly translates to “grown the old fashioned way,” according to a greengrocer at the Carmel market in Tel Aviv. Baladi eggplants are smaller than globe eggplants, usually about half the size. They’re squat and appear sort of cloven, with three to five grooves extending from the base towards the top of the fruit. Think of a slightly more squat looking globe eggplant, with multiple–ahem–cleavage. Baladi eggplants are wonderfully delicate and sweet. They’re great sliced and fried in a little olive oil, with a sprinkling of sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

A fire-roasted baladi eggplant is even better–still sweet, yet slightly smoky tasting with a creamy texture. Cow, sheep, or goat milk yogurt adds a cool tanginess to the eggplant, tahini sauce keeps the whole thing grounded and earthy, while pine nuts add texture and, well, a piny flavor that spices everything up. My favorite recipe for this dish is tucked away in the pages of a cooking magazine, lying in a box in storage way over on the other side of the planet. Here’s my attempt at reconstructing it.

Fire-roasted Eggplant with Yogurt and Tahini Sauce

1 medium sized eggplant
coarse sea salt
freshly ground pepper
1 TBSP tahini
1 TBSP freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 TBSP water
1/2 cup good quality cow, sheep, or goat yogurt
toasted pine nuts, lightly crushed or chopped
1 TBSP finely minced fresh herbs such as wild oregano, coriander, or parsley

- Light the smallest gas flame on your stove and rest the eggplant directly on the grate. If you don’t have a gas stove, use a barbecue or hibachi outdoors.

- As the eggplant darkens and starts to smell roasted, you’ll want to turn it over. Keep an eye (and a nostril) on it. If you notice large patches of still purple eggplant skin, turn the uncooked area to the flame.

- While the eggplant is roasting, mix the yogurt until it’s creamy. Try to whisk out the lumps, if any.

- In a small bowl, mix the tahini, lemon juice, and water until well combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

- Remove the eggplant from the flame. You’ll know it’s ready when its skin is no longer purple and it is fairly soft. The skin should not be charred (like used coal), just blackened.

- Let the eggplant rest for a few minutes, and drain any liquids that escape.

- Split the eggplant open (careful, it’s hot) and run a fork along the flesh like a rake. This will make the flesh easier to eat as you won’t need to work at separating it from the skin. Season each half lightly with salt and pepper to taste.

- Spoon some yogurt on each half. Drizzle tahini sauce over the yogurt. Sprinkle with pine nuts and minced herbs.

Serves 2

Variations:
- Instead of yogurt, use labaneh, a kind of tangy yogurt cheese of Middle Eastern origin.
- Instead of crushed pine nuts, use black sesame seeds, or nigella seeds.
- Sprinkle roasted cumin seeds on top.