Meyer Lemon Pasta from California

As I mentioned in my post about the Meyer lemon pizza, these amazing lemons were a total revelation to me. And since we had so many after our generous friends gave us a giant bag full of them, I started to get creative.

I was craving a lemony, buttery pasta, but I didn't want to go to the trouble to make a real sauce just for a one serving dish. So I came up with this lazy-man's one-bowl pasta dish.

Meyer Lemon Pasta
serves one

Ingredients:

1 Meyer lemon
1 tablespoon of butter
pasta for one
parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

This is hardly a recipe. I boiled some water for pasta. Then I squeezed the juice from one Meyer lemon into the bowl I was going to eat my pasta out of. I added a tablespoon or so of butter. I cooked my pasta (in this case, homemade fettucine) and then used a pasta spoon to simultaneously drain the pasta and move it to the bowl while it was still piping hot. Once all the pasta was in the bowl, I mixed it up a bit so that all of the noodles were evenly coated with the lemon juice and butter. Then I added a few generous pinches of parmesan cheese to the whole thing, along with a couple of turns on the salt and peper mills, and stirred everything up again. That's it!

After "inventing" this "recipe," I saw a more refined version in Martha Stewart. This recipe for Cacio e Pepe sounds delicious.

Meyer Lemon, Arugula, and Burrata Pizza from California

Citrus season seems to be coming to an end here in California, but for the last couple of months there's been a bumper crop of oranges, lemons and grapefruits hanging from the trees of every other house in town. Even though I grew up here, I had somehow missed out on the revelation that is the Meyer lemon, so when a friend said she had more then her family could use I was more than happy to take a bag or two.

Meyer Lemons have a lot going for them. They are apparently a cross between a lemon and either an orange or a mandarin, which makes them sweeter than regular lemons. And their skin is a bit thinner and totally edible! I sliced one up and just snacked away while trying to figure out what to do with my Meyer lemon haul.

I ended up making a few different things, but the most fun was this pizza. I was inspired by my favorite pizza at Pizzando, a new upscale-but-casual restaurant on the plaza in Healdsburg, California. They cook up their crust in their wood-fired oven, spread some of what they describe as a "roasted lemon marmelade" onto the crust and then add arugula and burrata.

When I tried roasting my Meyer lemons they got bitter, so instead I mixed up my lemon slices with some red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, and olive oil and let that meld together for a bit.

I spread that on my baked pizza crust, threw on a couple of handfuls of arugula tossed in a light dressing of Meyer lemon juice and olive oil, and added the burrata. I love salad on top of pizzas! This pizza is perfect for a lighter lunch or dinner. It's satisfying but tastes so fresh. The recipe below is imprecise, I know, but just make it how you like it. You can't go wrong with these ingredients.

Meyer Lemon, Arugula, and Burrata Pizza
Serves 2 as a main course or 4 as part of a larger meal

Ingredients:

Pizza dough (I use Mark Bittman's recipe from his book How to Cook Everthing)
About 3 Meyer lemons
Red pepper flakes
About 4 tablespoons olive oil
Two handfuls or so of arugula
1 bag of burrata

Even though this recipe is very free-form, I think it's one of those times where it helps to get everything ready so that you can put it all together while the crust is still hot. If you're making your own pizza dough, start that process first. You can prepare everything else while the dough rises.

Make your Meyer lemon base first. Wash your lemons carefully because we're going to leave the peel on. Slice up two of your lemons the long way twice so you now have eight longish lemon wedges. See if you can pick out some of the seeds at this point. Then slice each wedge thinly. Make sure you get rid of all the seeds and then add your lemon slices to a bowl. Throw in a little salt and pepper and some red pepper flakes and then add about two tablespoons of olive oil. Mix all this up a little bit with a fork for maximum flavor. Set aside.

Rinse and dry your arugula. I usually use about a handful of arugula per person. Set that aside as well.

Make a simple citrus dressing. Squeeze the juice out of your last Meyer lemon. Remove any seeds. Whisk in a little salt and pepper and two tablespoons of olive oil. Taste it and see if you like it. Add more olive oil or lemon juice depending on how you like your dressing. Set aside.

Preheat your oven according to your pizza recipe instructions. I usually set it pretty hot, about 400° Fahrenheit. Stretch your pizza dough into a roundish shape. Mine always end up oblong and with some thin parts, but it really doesn't matter. Brush your crust with a little olive oil and sprinkle with a little salt. Put in your hot oven and watch like a hawk. Mine got a little dark where the crust was especially thin. It was in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Now you're ready to assemble your pizza.

Arrange the lemon slices on the hot crust evenly. Dress the arugula and then spread the greens out over the lemons. Slice up the burrata and then drop onto the pizza. Cut into wedges or large squares and enjoy!

Sausages in Cider from England

When my husband and I got married, our coworkers and friends in Germany put together an incredibly sweet collection of recipes they called "Recipes for a Successful Marriage." We worked with people from all over the world, so we now have a cookbook full of tasty international recipes.

Our good friend Joanna grew up in England, in the county of Essex. Essex is just northeast of London, but when you're driving on its country roads or sitting in one of its pubs, it feels like you're a million miles away. Joanna sent me the photo above, which was taken near where she lived.

Joanna contributed two English recipes to our collection and I've been meaning to try her sausages in cider since I first read about it. I love the combination of apple and pork flavors and this dish delivers. If you like fried apples, cook up a few more because they are amazing with the sausages and bacon.

Sausages in Cider
serves 8

Ingredients:

8 pork sausages (ideally British-style, or something that will go with the apple flavors)
1 tablespoon neutral oil
8 slices smoked bacon, chopped roughly
2 small shallots, chopped roughly
1 1/2 cups strong, dry cider
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon flour
1 bay leaf
2 medium-sized apples
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit. Place a Dutch oven (or any large pot that can go from stovetop to oven) over medium heat, add a little oil and when it's hot, brown the sausages on all sides. Then carefully remove the sausages and set them aside, leaving the oil and bits in the pan.

Add the shallots and the bacon to the pan. When the bacon is crisp and and the onions soft, sprinkle in the flour to soak up the fat. Stir a few times and then slowly add the cider.

Return the sausages to the pot, along with the crushed garlic and the bay leaf. Grind a little pepper in and bring the whole thing to a simmer. Put a lid on the pot and place it in the oven. After 20 minutes, remove the lid and cook for a further 20 to 30 minutes.

While the sausages are finishing up, slice the apples into rings. You don't have to peel the apple, but cut out the seeds and tough bits in the middle of each slice. Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and fry the apples until they are golden.

Serve the sausages up individually over mashed potatoes with plenty of the bacon-shallot-cider goodness spooned over everything. Add a couple of apple rings to each plate.

Oyakodon from Japan

When I was a kid I had a book of bad jokes. One of the few that I can remember went something like this: Q. What did the chicken say to the plate of scrambled eggs? A. What a bunch of messed up kids.

Oyakodon is a Japanese dish of chicken, eggs and rice that makes a similar joke, playing off the fact that there is both chicken and egg in the dish. Oya means parent, ko means child, and don means rice bowl.

Oyakodon is a delicious, unpretentious dish that my friend Satoko says is very commonly eaten in Tokyo. The main components may be pretty basic, but it’s the ingredients in the broth that make this dish taste Japanese.

The broth is made up of soy sauce, sake, a sweet rice wine called mirin, and dashi, a stock made from dried bonito flakes, dried kelp and sometimes dried shitake mushrooms. We used instant dashi, which Satoko uses a lot. The chicken is poached briefly in water and then cooked in this special broth, before scrambled eggs are gently cooked on top of the chicken. When the eggs are just set, it’s served over rice. It’s what I’d call Japanese comfort food.

Satoko told me there are variations on this dish that translate to "strangers rice bowl" that include pork and eggs or beef and eggs. She says Japanese people like this kind of word play. She and her family have lived all over the world, but this is a dish that always tastes like home to her.

Oyakodon
Serves two

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs, deboned and cut into 1-inch pieces
½ of a medium-sized onion, sliced thinly
50 ml sake
100 ml mirin
150 ml dashi (add ¼ teaspoon dashi powder to 150 ml hot water and stir)
60 ml soy sauce
3 eggs beaten
steamed rice for 2
2 scallions, chopped
Directions:
Fill a medium-sized saucepan halfway with water. Bring to a boil. Poach chicken in water briefly, just until the outside of the chicken turns white. Rinse the chicken in cold water and then pat dry with a paper towel.
Meanwhile, add the sake and the mirin to another saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the dashi and the soy sauce and then the chicken. When the chicken is cooked through, turn off the heat.

Put a frying pan on medium heat. Take 180 ml of the liquid and the chicken and add them to the frying pan. Add the onion slices. When the onions are cooked, add the beaten eggs on top of the chicken, onions and liquid. Let the eggs cook until fully set, then serve on top of rice in bowls. Garnish with the chopped scallions.