May 22, 2014 Dinner Grilled Swordfish Cesar Salad and Clafoutis

May 22, 2014 Dinner   Grilled Swordfish Cesar Salad and Clafoutis

                Today Suzette was coming home, so I wanted to get some fresh ingredients.  After a 10:00 appointment I went to Sprouts.  I bought two approximately ½ lb. each previously frozen swordfish filets that looked great ($7.99/lb.), ½ lb. of sea scallops ($9.99/lb.), an eggplant ($1.49), 1 lb. of 85% cacao dark Columbian chocolate wafers, a hot house cucumber for $.99 and a cluster of tomatoes ($.98/lb.).  Then I drove to Fano Bakery and bought a loaf of 9 grain bread ($4.00) and a baguette ($3.00).  Fano currently makes my favorite baguette in Albuquerque and the proprietor went to the back near the ovens to fetch me a freshly baked baguette (heaven.)

   

I then went to Pro’s Market since it is vegetable and fruit day.  Unfortunately the new ownership is in the process of changing all the prices and they are all going up.  I was able to buy a bag of four small avocados for $1.00, ten whole wheat flour tortillas for $1.99, a container of LaLa mango yogurt for $2.50, an approximately 1 ½ lb. bag of cherries ($1.50/lb.) and took a rain check for 1 lb. bags of carrots at $.25.

When Suzette came home, she wanted a Cesar salad with grilled Swordfish.   Suzette went to the garden and picked a basket full of romaine lettuce leaves and tore them into bite sized pieces and spun them to clean them and put them into salad bowls.  I cut up 1/3 of the baguette and tossed it with herbs Provence and salt and olive oil and toasted them in a 350˚ oven for about fifteen minutes (which baked them to golden brown), shaved some cheese slices off a wedge of Pecorino Romano and chopped the slices of cheese into small pieces and put them on the salad.  Suzette grilled the swordfish, while I freshened up the Cesar salad dressing with additions of the juice of ½ lemon and few Tbsps. of olive oil and a dash of salt.  I dressed the salad, Suzette placed the grilled swordfish filet on the salad and I poured glasses of white wine and we were ready to eat.  We had almost an entire bottle of 2009 Grillo di Sicilia, so we each had a glass of white wine with dinner at our table under the newly covered gazebo in the garden.   I must say that I am really enjoying salads from our prodigious volunteer lettuce crop this year.  In fact, I ate a Cesar Salad with tomatoes and radishes and sliced cucumber for lunch.

 

Clafoutis Recipe

I always look forward to the first cherries of the season because I love clafoutis and the season’s first cherries are usually wonderfully fresh, sweet and cheap.  After dinner I pitted the 1 ½ lb. of cherries and doused them with cognac and put them into the fridge to soak.  I then put 1 cup of half and half and 1 ½ cups of 2% milk into a sauce pan and scalded the milk and then turned off the heat to allow it to cool. 

I then buttered the inside of a ceramic baking dish and coated the butter with granulated sugar on surfaces of the ceramic baking dish to keep the clafoutis from sticking and set the oven at 350˚.

Then I put 10 Tbsps. of confectioner’s sugar into a medium sized mixing bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients with 6 Tbsps. of all-purpose flour and made a depression in the center of it.  Then I stirred 3 eggs and stirred the eggs into the flour and sugar mixture with a wooden spoon until the ingredients reached a creamy consistency without any lumps.  Then I added the milk and stirred it in and gently poured the milk, egg, flour, and sugar mixture into the baking dish.

Then I added the cherries and cognac to the baking\dish and placed it in the middle of the 350˚ oven and set the timer for 50 minutes.  

I then offered Suzette a cordial glass of Wellington white port and we watched Colbert Report and John Stewart while the clafoutis baked.  

When the timer's  bell on the stove rang in 50 minutes I checked the Clafoutis and found that it was baked to firmness.  A very successful Clafoutis preparation.  Clafoutis is traditionally a French peasant dish from the Limousine region famous for its dairy cows and wonderful rich milk.  One of the secrets in making a good clafoutis is to use rich milk.  That is why I add half and half to whole or reduced fat milk, to increase its richness. 

Suzette likes her Clafoutis cold with cream, but I like mine, as I do all puddings and custards, hot from the stove or oven.  After about ten minutes when the custard stopped boiling, I dipped a spoon into the Clafoutis and it was wonderful; a firm custard, yet giving, with a soft crust of cognac soaked flour on the bottom of the dish and custard with fresh baked cherries on the top.  

Another simple meal made with the best and freshest seasonal ingredients.  Oh, the joys of Spring!

If we could always eat like peasants.

Bon Appétit