Curry Lane and French Fry Dreams

Sweet Curry Roasted Delicata Squash Fries with Curry Mustard Dip

The festive celebrating has continued into January as many of my friends celebrate their birthdays this month…which also means the convivial eating and drinking continues as well. With that in mind, I tried to recreate a light and refreshing salad that I had while on vacation. The salad was called the Simply Grilled and it was from the restaurant Veritas in Vieques. The salad is a variation on a Cobb, but the fresh lightly seasoned fish replaces the greasy fat-laden bacon. To accompany my large salad, I made fries from Delicata Squash. These fries were inspired by a lovely lunch I recently had with a good friend at a vegan restaurant called Peacefood Café on the UWS. We ordered their signature chickpeas fries and were enamored by their deliciousness. The fries were made of blended chickpeas and were bursting with Indian spice. For my variation, I kept it simple and sliced 2 squashes with the skin intact, and seeds removed, into fry-like shapes and coated them with 2 tbsp sweet curry powder, 2 tbsp olive oil, and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. The fries were roasted at 425 degrees for 40 minutes. While the fries roasted, I simply mixed extra strong Dijon mustard with 2 tsp sweet curry powder and chopped cilantro and chives for a tangy curry laced dip. These fries were delicious and hard to put down! Luckily they contained beneficial potassium, which is an essential mineral that aids with normalizing blood pressure. Yellow squash also contains lutein and zeaxanthin, which are vital for maintaining eye health and reducing damage from free radicals.

"The Simply Grilled" Salad (Serves 2)

12 oz Fresh Wild Red Snapper fillets

I box organic romaine hearts chopped

1 roasted red bell pepper chopped

2 sticks celery thinly sliced

¼ red onion thinly sliced

½ avocado diced
1/2 cup chickpeas rinsed

10 cherry tomatoes sliced in half

¼ cup Stilton or Gorgonzola crumbled

Salt and Pepper

Parsley and chives for garnish at your discretion

Anchovy Dressing

6 anchovy fillets

2 tbsp strong Dijon Mustard

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

Ground black pepper

For the dressing:
Blend anchovies, mustard, and vinegar together in a blender. Slowly stream in olive oil with the motor on and season with pepper.

Wash and thoroughly dry the fish and season lightly with salt and pepper

Heat a pan with canola spray and pan sear each fillet for around 5 minutes a side or until the center is opaque and skin is crisp

Meanwhile, toss together all the salad components and about 2 tbsp of dressing

Serve fish on top of salad, garnish with herbs, and enjoy this light, healthful, and filling salad

Snapper Cobb

I know it is practically sacrilegious to serve cheese with fish in some elite circles, but this combo deliciously breaks the rules. 

Happy Birthday to all you January babies…. I have definitely enjoyed continuing the celebrations!

Goodnight Irene

Irene came and went and caused most of us to hibernate in our houses for most of the weekend. To our great disappointment, a member of The Crunchy Radish had their birthday festivities put on hold due to the storm. To make the best of things, we made a birthday dinner with some goods that we loaded up on the day before at the farmers’ market.

Grilled avocado was a unique spin on the traditional avocado and tomato salad. Marinating the avocado in lemon juice and then grilling the halves with a little olive oil for two minutes a side really brought an interesting complexity to the fruit and intensified the flavor. The avocado was layered with red onion, (which was also tossed in lemon juice), heirloom and beefsteak tomatoes, olive oil, some aged balsamic, salt, and pepper.

Usually not a potato person, I couldn't help myself at the farmers’ market. These little nuggets were calling out to me to be simply roasted to the point where their skins were crisp and finished with a garlicky dressing. Potatoes are underrated and do possess some essential nutrients, particularly in their skin. Potatoes are a complex carbohydrate and are naturally low in calories. Potatoes with the skin not only have fiber, but contain B Vitamins, Vitamin C, iron, calcium and potassium.

The petite blue and fingerling potatoes were roasted with rosemary and olive oil and then mixed with a "paste" of roasted garlic, rosemary, cayenne pepper, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

The birthday boy grilled himself up a  New York Strip steak, and we toasted with some bubbly.

For dessert I was able to utilize my bounty of peaches and Italian plums and made a crisp with whole wheat flour, oatmeal, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, walnuts, currants, and some Earth Balance spread. The crisp wouldn't be complete without some organic vanilla bean ice cream.

We were able to have a pre-birthday celebration the night before at Fedora. We had a lovely meal filled with oysters, chicken liver on toast with pickled onions, sautéed chanterelles with a poached egg, and their take on a surf and turf which consisted of chicken meatballs and scallops. We finished the meal in style with a delicious ice cream sandwich-Van Leeuween ice cream sandwiched between chocolate cookies dipped in chopped peanuts!

Looking forward to continuing the birthday celebration with friends later this week at Roberta's.

Happy Birthday to the biggest Radish Head I know!

Complimentary petite organic radishes from a delightful celebratory dinner at ABC Kitchen