Dungeness Crab & Avocado Omelet

A decadent and lush omelet.

Sunday was Regina’s second Mother’s Day as a bona fide mom (and not just as a super-duper-stepmom). Naturally Bennet and I treated her to a day of yummy-delicious foods that would help make her feel special and loved. Breakfast was headlined by a dungeness crab & avocado omelet with a hollandaise sauce made with a pinch of cayenne and celery salt. Also on the plate was a toasted English muffin (from Bay’s, our favorite muffin maker) with a dab of Irish butter, a slice of crispy applewood-smoked bacon (from Applegate), and a fruit salad of diced pineapple, watermelon, and Hami melon (sort of an elongated Asian cantaloupe). A glass of freshly squeezed tangerine juice completed this perfect brekkie.

After the eggs are mostly set, add the warm crab and avocado on the half closest to you.

To make one omelet you’ll need:

• 2 eggs
• good unsalted butter, about two or three tablespoons
• 1/2 cup to 2/3 cup freshly picked and cooked Dungeness crab
• 2 or 3 slices of ripe avocado
• salt & pepper
• hollandaise sauce, recipes follows
• cilantro leaves for garnish
• a non-stick 9-inch omelet pan with a lid
• a heat-resistant silicon spatula

Now do this:

First, make the hollandaise sauce and set it aside according to the directions below.

With a fork whisk the eggs in a bowl until very uniform in color and consistency. In a small pan (not the omelet pan) melt about a tablespoon of the butter over low heat. When the butter is completely melted add the crab. Warm the crab gently and thoroughly and then turn off the heat.

Now heat the omelet pan over medium-high heat and add about a tablespoon of butter. When the butter has melted tilt the pan in all directions to make sure the butter coats the bottom surface of the pan completely. Pour in the eggs and using your spatula gently push the eggs toward the middle. Again, tilt the pan in a circular fashion to spread out the whipped eggs. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cover with the lid. Cook the eggs (maybe 30 to 60 seconds) covered until just about set, but still slightly moist-looking.

Add the warmed crab to the eggs, spreading it out on half of the omelet surface, preferably the half closest to you. Top crab with avocado. Season with a bit more salt and pepper. Using your spatula gently flop the other half of the cooked eggs over the crab and avocado. Turn off heat and allow the omelet to warm through in the warm pan for about a minute.

Now gently slide the omelet out of the pan onto a plate. Top with about a quarter cup of warmed hollandaise sauce and a clutch of cilantro. Serve warm and eat immediately!

Hollandaise Sauce for Crab Omelets

• 3 egg yolks, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream
• 2 sticks of unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• pinch of white pepper
• room temperature water

Set up a double-boiler. That’s going to be a medium-sized pot with a stainless steel bowl that fits in the top comfortably. Use a deep enough pot so that the bowl has at least four inches of clearance below it. Fill the pot with 2 inches of water in the bottom. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.

Put the egg yolks and cream into the bowl. Whisk gently together. Placed bowl over the simmering water and whisk consistently (but not too vigorously) until the eggs have thickened slightly. If the eggs get a little clumpy you can add a teaspoon or so of water to thin it out, whisking until smooth.

Now add butter, a few chunks at a time, until it melts. You need to whisk constantly after each addition in order for the butter and eggs to emulsify (combine smoothly). When you’ve whisked in all the butter (which should take about six to eight minutes) add the lemon juice and whisk it in until smooth. Add spices. Now check your consistency. Your hollandaise should be smooth, not too thick, and it should flow. If it seems dense, whisk in a little water.

Now, set aside the bowl of hollandaise (off the double boiler) until you’re ready to top your eggs. Keep your pot of water at the ready. You can replace the bowl over the water, turn the simmer back on, and reheat your hollandaise just before you’re ready to assemble. Again, when you reheat the sauce, if it thickens too much, whisk in a bit of water to thin and smooth it out.

Yummy brekkie!

Baby Heirloom Tomato Salad with Bocconcini & Avocado

Very pretty and pretty damn tasty salad.

Over the weekend I picked up this assortment of stunning baby heirloom tomatoes. It was a gorgeous mixture of little reds and greens and yellows and oranges — all pretty and all delicious. I whipped up a salad of these tomatoes, which I halved and tossed with bocconcini (little balls of fresh mozzarella), shaved celery, red onion, and avocado. The dressing was a combination of white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, honey, fresh garlic, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and cracked pepper. For a little herbal kick I added some minced chives, parsley, cilantro, and fresh mint.

This is quite possibly the last week I can get great local tomatoes and I’ve been making the most of it, eating them every day. If you can still find some decent tomatoes in your area, I suggest you do the same. Right now.

 

 

A Tale of Two BLATs

Awesome BLAT!

One of my great joys during summer is the proliferance of wonderful tomatoes. Especially exciting are the marvelous heirloom varieties available at the many farmer’s markets that pepper our fair city of angels. But although I love gorgeous varieties like green zebra, nectarine, moneymaker, pineapple, and brandywine the tomato I turn to most is the beefsteak. Large, ruddy, sweet, acidic, and truly mouthwatering, beefsteaks are the best choice for a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.

BLAT aerial view.

In the past week I’ve made a couple of excellent BLT’s featuring some beautiful thick slabs of beefsteak tomatoes. In truth I’m never quite satisfied with the classic BLT; I almost always will add an “A”, making a BLT into a BLAT. Being a resident of Southern California, it’s a no-brainer that I’d add avocado to the sandwich. For the second sando I was out of avocado so I threw in a bit of arugula, which lends a lovely peppery and herbaceous note.

When I make a BLT or a BLAT I have a few basic rules. I always lightly toast the bread. I always add mayo, which I usually make from scratch. I always put the warm bacon between the lettuce and the tomato. I always use iceberg lettuce; it’s not only the classic choice, but its insipid flavor and watery crunch are the perfect foil for both the tomato slabs and the salty, smoky, and meaty bacon. Finally, I always use a excellent bacon. Two of my favorites are Applegate Sunday Bacon and Pederson’s Uncured Hickory-Smoked Bacon. Both are readily available and far superior to Oscar Meyer or Farmer John bacons. Sure, you can use whatever small-batch bacon you want (and I do on occasion), but whatever bacon you choose shouldn’t be so chewy that you can’t bite through it with ease.

Pederson’s Uncured Hickory-smoked Bacon.

When I cook bacon I always cook it in the oven. Much better than the pan-method, roasting bacon results in evenly-cooked strips and is far less messy. No grease-spatter and far less work; if you don’t cook your bacon in the oven you’re behind the times, dude.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Place your bacon strips on a sheet-pan lined with parchment paper, or better yet, lined with a rack. Roast the bacon until crisp, probably twenty minutes, although time varies depending on brand. In the meantime you can clean your lettuce, slice your tomatoes, and toast your bread. Assemble your sandwich while the bacon is hot.

BLAT #1 was composed of toasted buttermilk country white bread with a generous amount of mayo, beefsteak tomato, iceberg lettuce, and Applegate Sunday Bacon.

BLAT #2 was composed of toasted seven-grain bread with mayo and Irish butter, beefsteak tomato, iceberg lettuce, arugula, and Pederson’s bacon.

“A” is for arugula.

BLAT’s all Follks!

Today’s Salad: Cool For Summer

A simple, refreshing salad!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I post at least a couple of salads a week. Not only do I love to eat salads, I get great satisfaction out of making them. I like creating salads that are appropriate for the season (think duck confit and pears in Fall), salads that serve a specific function (is it a meal’s star or just an accompaniment?), salads that demonstrate variety in taste, in texture, or temperature, and salads that just sing with flavor. I love crisp greens coated lovingly with a tart, vibrant dressing. I love that you can make something so simple so sublime. It’s healthy and it’s a great way to eat. Eat your greens, people!

This salad I made on a hot day and it was perfect. Cool, refreshing, light, and easy.

It’s just some nice, crisp iceberg lettuce with baby arugula, shaved fennel, shaved celery, Persian cucumbers, avocado, and fresh cilantro leaves.

The dressing was lemon juice, white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, dijon mustard, honey, one clove of garlic (finely minced), a pinch of celery seed, and plenty of fleur de sel and cracked black pepper. I coated the greens gently and evenly and then ate it up!

For tips on making vinaigrettes, check out this previous post: Salad Dressing Simplified!

http://spencerhgray.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/salad-dressing-simplified/

Avocado Toast + Boiled Egg + Sugar-Kiss Melon = Killer Breakfast

Good way to start the day.

Just a pic of my breakfast today. Healthy, balanced, super-delish.

• Avocado on toasted seedy (sunflower seeds, flax, oatmeal) whole grain bread with a little Irish butter slathered on it.
• Medium-boiled eggs with cracked pepper & flour de sel.
• Sugar-kiss melon (a fantastic cantaloupe variety with huge sugar)
• Tangerine juice & Oolong Tea (not pictured)

Feeling great! Just thought you should know.

Happy weekend!

Vegan Tomato & Avocado Sandwich on Raw Almond Bread

An important part of a balanced omnivorous diet is awesome sandwiches.

As you know I’m an omnivorous eater, meaning that I’ll eat pretty much anything (at least once). I eat meat, I eat gluten, I eat all kinds of veggies cooked and raw, I don’t really have any food allergies or sensitivities and that meshes nicely with my work as a chef and blogger. My tastes are broad and I’m driven by an intense curiosity — I like eating new things, learning new dishes, trying new flavors. I try not to limit myself, but simultaneously I don’t want to be gluttonous to the point where my health is compromised by my chosen profession or my habits. So I try to strike a balance in life. If I eat a giant bloody ribeye one day I might eat only a salad the next. If I eat a pile of cheese nachos another day I’ll tilt the scale back with something simple and amazingly healthy like this completely raw and vegan sandwich the following day.

The “bread” is both gluten-free and raw. By raw I mean it’s unbaked; the dough is made  of almond meal pressed together with some other super-healthy stuff, which is then put into a food dehydrator and dried at a low temperature until it stiffens to the point that it retains its shape and can be used like sandwich bread. The end result is dense, a bit crumbly, and very tasty! And it’s incredibly healthy for you, as it contains no refined flours or sugars.

Now I’m not really a supporter of the “raw” food movement, which posits that food should never be heated over a temperature that you might experience in natural sunlight — approximately 105 -110° F. In theory it means that no nutrients are lost due to invasive heat applications (i.e. cooking). In practice, it means you never eat a hot bowl of soup again. I believe that the human animal is highly adaptable and that we’ve evolved and developed ways of maximizing our nutritional intake congruent to the development of cooking. And I think it’s kind of silly to just dry things out and pretend it’s not a form of cooking. Now, I’m sure I just pissed off some vegans and raw-foodists, but I’ll bet they’re already avoiding my blog, as it’s called OMNIVOROUS!

I say all this because even if I don’t buy into the idea of raw food as a diet for healthy living, it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate some aspects of it. I made this bread for work and it came out very nice, very wholesome, very toothsome, and quite filling. I’ll make it again, even if it’ll never replace a fantastic baguette as a perfect sandwich vehicle. My friend Megan is a certified raw food chef, who provides me occasionally with healthy vegan and diet-friendly recipes for my work. This almond bread is adapted from a recipe of hers.

Tasty, healthy, and filling.

You will need:

Equipment:

• A food dehydrator
• parchment paper
• a food processor
• a wooden rolling pin

Ingredients:

• 2 large carrots, peeled
• 6 cups almond meal
• 2 cups flax meal
• 2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons sea salt (or kosher salt)
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1 1/2 cups raw sunflower seeds (sprouted seeds, if you’re feeling ambitious
• water
• olive oil pan spray

Now do this:

Cut the carrots into 1-inch pieces and put into a food processor. Chop the carrots down as finely as you can, into a paste. You’ll need to go in stages and occasionally scrape down the sides of the processor bowl to get it uniform.

Put the carrot paste in a large mixing  bowl and add almond meal, flax seed meal, olive oil, salt, chia seeds, and sunflower seeds. Using your hands, mix well to combine. Add water to make the mixture sticky enough so that it forms into a loose dough.

Lay out a sheet of parchment paper and spray with a light coating of olive oil pan spray. Put about a third of the dough on the paper and spread it out until it’s about a half-inch thick. Spray the top of the dough with more pan spray and cover with a second sheet of parchment. Using a rolling pin gently flatten the dough until it’s about 1/4-inch to 1/3-inch in thickness. Remove top sheet of parchment and with a sharp knife cut pressed dough into squares about 4-inches on a side. Be sure to cut all the way through the paper.

You’ll want to dehydrate the bread squares on the bottom sheet of parchment, as the parchment will help the bread maintain its shape while drying. Lay these paper-lined squares onto the racks of your dehydrator and set the thermostat to 105º F. Dehydrate for four hours and refrigerate bread squares until ready for use.

Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

Make the sandwich!

To assemble this sandwich take two pieces of the bread and gently cut each into two symmetrical rectangles. Peel off the parchment paper backing.

I spread the bread with Vegenaise on all interior surfaces and added very thinly shaved cucumber, a little butter lettuce, some slices of very ripe tomato, some wonderful avocado, and tiny clutch of micro cilantro (regular cilantro is fine).

The sandwich was delicious! And it felt like a great antidote the fried chicken I ate for dinner the night before.

 

 

Grilled Haloumi Sandwich on Toasted Gluten-Free Bread

A super-delicious (and super-healthy) sando!

My good friend Deb (she of the original Red Ginger team) very recently asked me for a vegetarian, gluten-free sandwich recipe. It got me thinking a bit, and although I’m not gluten-intolerant (in fact, I love gluten!) I’m not averse to omitting it on occasion. And although I eat meat (hell, I’m OMNIVOROUS after all!) I’m passionate about vegetables of all kinds and I actively promote the idea of eating a few meat-free meals a week. The way I approach it, a good omnivorous diet contains a healthy balance of veggies, seafood, fruits, meats, and whole grains. I encourage cooking as many of your meals as you can in your home kitchen, eating the highest quality products, using the least processed ingredients, and sourcing the freshest stuff you can find. And for me, moderation is key to a healthy diet, except for, perhaps, Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, which I have a particular weakness for. Sorry, I digress…

The star of today’s sandwich is haloumi (also spelled halloumi), a Cypriot (meaning from the island of Cyprus) cheese of goat and sheep’s milk that is low-fat and quite firm. It has a high melting point, meaning in practical terms that you can grill slices of the cheese without it collapsing and falling through the grates. It’s dense and (kinda) meaty, which makes for a great, filling ingredient in a vegetarian meal. When you char-grill it, the salty, simple cheese warms and softens on the inside, crisps on the outside, develops more complex flavors, and takes on a delicious mild smokiness.

Today’s Salad: yellow beets + avocado + romas + perlini + fennel + arugula

Fresh and delicious.

I had these lovely lightly-pickled yellow baby beets that I’d made on a whim a few days ago. I matched them with some surprisingly decent roma tomatoes (considering it’s still winter) and a pretty good avocado. Over the top was a tossed salad of shaved fennel, a bit of crisp iceberg, and wild arugula. I scattered a few mozzarella perlini around the plate and drizzled over it a healthy dose of a pretty basic vinaigrette I like to make of white vinegar, lemon juice, honey, dijon, and very fruity extra virgin olive oil.

A delightful salad.