Mission: Cook! (22 page)

Greens taste wonderful with olive oil, a sprinkling of salt and pepper, maybe a few shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano, for a reason. Throw in a fresh, ripe tomato and some cured olives, pair your salad with a lean protein, say grilled lamb or chicken, squeeze the juice of a lemon over the top of it all, and add some freshly harvested herbs, like oregano or thyme, and you have the basic Mediterranean diet. Eat as much of this as you want until you are
satisfied,
and you will be doing your body a lot of good. Conversely, eat three fast-food burgers a day, dripping with “special sauce,” paired with a bag of fries and a sugary soda, and by the end of a week you'll feel as if you're ready for a trip to the emergency room.

The body craves a sense of completeness and balance from the fuel we feed it, and I strive to integrate this idea whenever I construct a recipe. I try to pair hot with cold, moist with crispy, savory with sweet in the same way that a painter controls color, or a composer controls tone and rhythm.

The body's instinctual response to this input from the foods we eat, if we eat them in the correct proportions, is to send signals to the brain to stop eating when satisfaction has been reached and when the body's needs have been provided. Even a little bit of pungent red cayenne pepper added to a dish sends an earlier signal of “fullness” to the brain than simply salting or buttering a dish will provide. The body wants and needs to experience the bitter with the sweet, the astringent with the salty. What is the reason that the body requires all of these tastes to be healthy? It is another facet of the pleasure provided by eating, really, because it provides the pleasure of being in balance, physically and even spiritually, with the foods you eat.

I know of a study that was conducted wherein restaurantgoers were given either butter or olive oil with their bread at table before a meal. Upon observation, it was determined that whilst diners sopped more olive oil per slice than the butter spreaders used butter, they ate fewer pieces of bread and consumed substantially fewer calories, by
choice.
Food psychologists felt that this may be because the olive oil has a stronger, more complex flavor than butter, and that diners felt more satisfied more quickly with the olive oil than with the butter.

Compare the experience of reading a great story or listening to a great piece of music, of watching a great movie or TV show, with the vacuous feeling of sitting and clicking on channel after channel with your remote control, that feeling of “500 channels and nothing's on.” You fill the same amount of minutes with your remote control, but the experience leaves you empty and depressed. Feeding on an entire carton of ice cream, a bag of potato chips, or a box of chocolate chip cookies has the same dulling effect. There's an expression in computer programming called GIGO, or “garbage in, garbage out.” These scenarios apply to your diet as to anything else in life. Search your feelings about how you eat, observe your own eating behaviors, get in touch with your body, and you will soon be able to determine what works for you and what doesn't.

First,
blanch the haricots verts in salted boiling water until al dente (or cooked to your liking). Once this is done, drain the beans into a strainer or colander, and then they should be shocked by dunking the strainer of beans into a waiting bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process, which will also help them retain a great color. Drain and set aside in the refrigerator until needed.

Place one of the limes in a small microwave-safe bowl and microwave it until the essential oils in the skin are released. (This usually takes 30 seconds to 1 minute. Listen while it is microwaving and you will actually hear the “whoosh” sound when the oils are released, after which you can remove it and see the oils in the bottom of the bowl.) Then repeat with the second lime. I am having you microwave them one at a time because the ripeness and size of each lime may be different, requiring a different amount of time for the “whoosh” to occur for each. These limes will be hot coming from the microwave, so you can let them cool enough to handle before squeezing them. Make sure you use the oils in the bottom of the small bowl, as well as the juice that is squeezed.

Turn on the blender and through the feed tube, add the rosemary, tarragon,
cilantro, stone-ground mustard, rice wine vinegar, and fresh ginger, and blend together until a smooth paste has formed.

At this point the limes should be cool enough to squeeze. With the power on, add the lime juice through the blender feed tube, and then very slowly add the oil and water until the mixture thickens and can coat the back of a spoon.

Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper. Set aside in the refrigerator until needed. (When chilled, the dressing should resemble something like mayonnaise.)

Reserve some of the dressing to drizzle on the plate later. Then, mix the beans, onion, and tomatoes with the dressing (adjusting the amount to your preference), and refrigerate for only a couple of hours.
(Don't mix too far ahead, because the salad ingredients will bleed and you will have a very runny dressing.)

To prepare the salmon: season the fillets with salt and pepper. Place a little oil into a sauté pan and bring to the smoking point (you need a hot pan in order to get a crispy outside).

Cook the salmon, skin side down, undisturbed for about 5 minutes, or until the skin begins to get crispy, then turn and begin cooking for 5 minutes more. (You may need more time on the salmon depending on the thickness). You can, if you wish, finish the salmon in the oven at 375 degrees. However,
do not overcook the salmon.
Once you touch the flesh and it springs back up, it's cooked. Remember, the fish will continue to cook a further 15 to 20 minutes after it is removed from the oven. This is called carryover cooking.

PRESENTATION

To plate, take a little haricot bean salad and place it in the center of a plate, top with the crispy salmon, and drizzle with some of the herbed mustard dressing. Place the micro-celery and fresh lime slice on top of the salmon. Yummy! A truly amazing dish any time of the year!

T
HE FOODS YOU EAT SHOULD SERVE NATURE'S PURPOSE TO PROVIDE EQUI-
librium within the body. How purely pleasant it is to arrive at the dinner table with a healthy appetite, enjoy a balanced meal that features a symphony of the tastes and textures that you are hungry for, and then to feel not crammed to the point of bursting, but completely satisfied. The sound you are aiming for is not a strained, painful “oooohh”; it's a contented “aah.”

Listen to your body and pay attention to it when it's trying to tell you it is fully sated and happy. This is the last time I'll say it: respect your food, respect your body, and do not overeat!

Heat
the oil over medium-high heat in a large wok or heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir in the fennel seeds, and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes until lightly browned. Lower the heat, add the coriander, cumin, and chili powder, and stir-fry for 1 minute. Add the fresh ginger, garlic, eggplant, and potato, mix well, and cook for 15 minutes.

Add the green pepper, zucchini, tomatoes with their juice, chiles, and salt to taste. Bring slowly to a boil, then simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

Stir in the peas and cook for 3 minutes. Season with salt as needed. Transfer the curry to a warmed serving dish and serve at once with naan or chapati.