Skip to main content

Cannellini Beans and Shaved Spring Vegetables



Modified from NYT City Kitchen to double the veg and halve the oil-- to make it extra hearty, serve topped with a perfectly poached egg or two! Serves 4 to 6.

FOR THE VINAIGRETTE:
4 tablespoons lemon juice, or as needed
Finely grated zest of half a lemon
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel seed
6 anchovy fillets, rinsed and chopped
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

 FOR THE SALAD:
2 cups cooked cannellini beans, drained
Salt and pepper
Pinch red pepper flakes
225g (1/2 lb) large, fat asparagus spears, snapped and peeled
60g (8-10) radishes
200g (1 small) fennel bulb, trimmed
20g (2-3 small) sweet spring onion, or a few scallions, finely chopped
Lots of chopped parsley for garnish.

To make the vinaigrette, whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients. Adjust lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

To assemble the salad, place the beans in a large bowl. Pour half the vinaigrette over the beans and toss lightly. Season with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes.

Using a sharp mandolin — and a hand guard — carefully slice the asparagus spears lengthwise to about the thickness of a penny. Slice the radishes and fennel to the same thickness. Lay the shaved vegetables and chopped onion or scallions in a shallow bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and dress them very lightly with a few spoonfuls of vinaigrette, turning gently to coat.

Spoon the beans onto a serving platter or individual plates, then cover the beans with the shaved vegetables. Add a little more vinaigrette over the top. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Constructivist Crap

Reading this post was like deja vu for me! I took a class just like this as an undergrad... (surprise, surprise) in the education department. I made it through that semester by taking solace in two facts: (a) I was also taking The Sociology of Education in the soc department, with a professor who actually taught the material and (b) most of us in my little liberal arts bubble wouldn't end up teachers, thus wouldn't have an opportunity to inflict such pedagogical torture on kids who needed to actually learn stuff. It would appear that Newoldschoolteacher has neither of those to help her out. God save her. The professor in my class repeatedly insisted that we were a "democratic classroom" and that she wasn't any more of an expert on the material than us. WHAT? I paid good money for that course, money that employed her to teach me. I hope that she was more expert on the material than I was! Also, when I "took responsibility for myself" and said that ...

Privilege of Being

Robert Hass Many are making love. Up above, the angels in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond and the texture of cold rivers. They glance down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy-- it must look to them like featherless birds splashing in the spring puddle of a bed-- and then one woman, she is about to come, peels back the man's shut eyelids and says, look at me, and he does. Or is it the man tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater? Anyway, they do, they look at each other; two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious, startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet lubricious glue, stare at each other, and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically like lithographs of Victorian beggars with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags in the lewd alleys of the novel. All of creation is offended by this distress. It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes, ...

Day 282: Chicken with Yams

 We have been watching a lot of cooking shows here in the Distance, and my now-professional opinion is that Jacques Pepin remains a true treasure.  His most recent work, Cooking at Home,  is super cozy and accessible, even more so than when he was in the studio.  Vanilla pudding for the soul, we say! Before you read further, go take five minutes and watch Jacques prepare Chicken with Yams .  That is what we made tonight, with a few small tweaks. Boneless/skinless thighs instead of bone-in; I tossed in some light herbs/spices to the onions before deglazing:  1 tsp of chopped fresh thyme (1/2 tsp if dry)  A small shake of nutmeg  A small shake of dry mustard (a dab of Dijon would also work); Deglazed with chicken broth instead of white wine (about 1 cup altogether); and At the end, I removed the chicken and veggie chunks and thickened the juice into a sauce: Mixed some juice into 2 tsp cornstarch and then put it back in the pan Added a dash of acid ...