The Minimalist Cooks Dinner (18 page)

TIME:
40 to 50 minutes

MAKES:
4 servings

Back in the old days, when I was a cooking fanatic, I made a wonderful roasted monkfish recipe. The sauce was a reduction that began with meat bones, continued with roasted vegetables, and required four or five steps over a two-day period.

Now, I make the same sauce with pan-roasted vegetables, a simple combination of onion, carrot, and celery, darkly browned in a little bit of butter, and a can of beef stock. It takes a half-hour or less, and although it doesn’t have the richness of my original work of art, no one to whom I served both could tell the difference with certainty.

• 1 tablespoon butter
  

• 1 small carrot, roughly chopped
  

• 1 celery stalk, roughly chopped
  

• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
  

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste, optional
  

• One 13-ounce can beef broth, or 1½ cups meat or chicken stock
  

• 1½ to 2 pounds monkfish
  

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  

• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
  

1. Preheat the oven to 500°F (or its maximum temperature). Put a cast-iron or other ovenproof skillet or roasting pan in the oven while it is heating. Put 1½ teaspoons butter in a small saucepan and turn the heat to medium-high. When the butter is melted, add the carrot and celery and stir; a minute later, add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables brown—be careful not to let them burn—less than 10 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste if you’re using it, then the broth. Bring to a boil, then adjust the heat so the mixture simmers for about 10 minutes.
   

2. Strain the broth, pressing on the vegetables to extract their liquid. Return the broth to medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Boil until reduced by about three-quarters, or until less than ½ cup of thick liquid remains.
   

3. Meanwhile, season the fish with salt and pepper. Carefully remove the hot pan from the oven and pour in the oil; swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the fish and roast for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and
   carefully pour the liquid that has accumulated around the fish into the sauce. Once again, bring the sauce to a boil and reduce until it is thick, syrupy, and about ½ cup in volume. Turn the fish and roast it for another 5 minutes, or until a thin-bladed knife inserted into its thickest part meets little resistance.
   

4. Stir the remaining 1½ teaspoons butter into the sauce, then serve the fish with the sauce spooned over it.
   

TIME:
20 minutes

MAKES:
4 servings

Good soy sauce makes a fine and instant poaching liquid, to which you can a variety of simple seasonings—here I use scallions and chile. Simmered in this, the fish gains not only the flavor of soy but a beautiful mahogany color. The dish can be garnished with the cooked scallions, and the poaching liquid—slightly reduced, but now enhanced by the flavor of the fish—makes a wonderful dressing for rice.

• ⅓ to ½ cup good soy sauce
  

• 2 teaspoons sugar
  

• About 15 scallions, trimmed and cut into 2-inch lengths, or 1 large onion, sliced
  

• 1 dried or fresh chile, optional
  

• One ½-pound striped bass fillet, preferably a center cut
  

1. Combine the soy, ½ to 1 cup water, sugar, scallions, and optional chile in a deep skillet just large enough to hold the fish. Turn the heat to medium-high and bring to a boil.
   

2. Add the fish and adjust the heat so the mixture bubbles but not furiously. Cook for about 10 minutes, turning the fish once or twice, until it is coated with a brown glaze and cooked through. Serve the fish with white rice, spooning the sauce over all and garnishing with the scallions.
   

TIME:
40 to 50 minutes

MAKES:
4 servings

I first had this mysterious, dark, extraordinarily delicious sauce at a Seattle restaurant called Brasa. It’s a kind of
gastrique
, a relatively simple sauce that is based on caramelized sugar. Like many other foods—from coffee to bread to steak—sugar becomes somewhat bitter when browned, losing most if not all of its sweetness. In fact, it becomes markedly more complex, not only in flavor but in molecular structure. This considerable change is not routine in most kitchens, but it’s pretty easy to produce (and if you fail, you’ve only lost a cup of sugar; try again, more slowly, and you’ll get it).

• ½ cup sugar
  

• 2 cups Pinot Noir
  

• 1 sprig rosemary, plus 1 teaspoon chopped rosemary
  

• 4 salmon steaks, each about ½ pound
  

• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  

• 1 tablespoon butter
  

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Put the sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, preferably nonstick and with rounded sides, and turn the heat to medium. Cook, without stirring (just shake the pan occasionally to redistribute the sugar) until the sugar liquefies and begins to turn brown, about 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, stand back, and carefully add the wine. Turn the heat to high and cook, stirring, until the caramel dissolves again. Then add the rosemary sprig and reduce over high heat, stirring occasionally until the mixture is syrupy and reduced to just over ½ cup, 10 to 15 minutes.
   

2. Heat a nonstick skillet over high heat until it begins to smoke. Season the salmon on both sides with salt and pepper, then put it in the pan; immediately put the pan in the oven. Roast for 3 minutes, then turn the salmon and roast for another 3 minutes. Check to see that the salmon is medium-rare or thereabouts (it should be still orange in the center), remove it from the oven, and keep it warm, or cook for another 1 to 2 minutes if you like.
   

3. When the sauce is reduced, stir in the balsamic vinegar and butter and turn the heat to medium-low. Cook until the butter melts. Add salt and pepper, and remove the rosemary sprig. Taste and adjust seasoning, then serve over the fish. Garnish with the chopped rosemary.