The Heat Goes On

Hell Is Other People


I completed the majority of this entry a month ago, so the references to the summer heat might sound odd. Still, the dishes are pretty good for a day when you don't feel like doing much cooking.

I spent the majority of the 80s in the U.S. Navy, running reactors and reactor protection equipment aboard nuclear submarines. In the early 80s, while the submarine I was assigned to was laying over in Guam for repairs, the crew was billeted in some old WWII vintage barracks up on a jungly hill. The place had no A/C, huge open-bay rooms full of bunk beds tented with mosquito netting, lots of perpetually-open windows, and just a few old slow fans for cooling. For our first few days, during the day, with temperatures in the upper 90s and humidity ditto, having become accustomed to the consistent air-conditioned comfort of the sub (well, except for occasional hot moments in the engine room) most of us just lazed under our mosquito nets, waiting for sundown and practicing our sweating. I remember one of the guys waxing rhapsodic about his hometown in Vermont. Making angels in pristine, new fallen snow. Getting a tongue stuck to a flagpole. Sledding in the mountains. Snowforts and snowball fights with his brothers. Apparently they were a very frolicsome family.

Lying there with what felt like a large tributary of the Mississippi running down from each armpit, the thought of snow didn't cool me at all. Maybe I was just feeling disagreeable, but my crewmate's burbling just reminded me how much I hated snow. I grew up in Colorado, skiing from pre-adolescence, and I absolutely hated snow then no less than now. I've never liked cold weather. Okay, I loved skiing—during which I could forget how cold it was—but I always wished it could have been possible to ski in warmer climes. That sweaty day in Guam, as I lay simmering in my own bodily fluids, I realized that, as bad as I felt, I've always preferred hot weather.

So what was keeping me in that hot room with those other shlubs, watching the geckos scurry across the netting? Was the humidity really that enervating? I mean, if I got up and Did Something, would I feel any worse? I decided not. I got out of the sack and strolled off toward town to find something to do in the beautiful sunshine. For the next several days, whenever I wasn't required to be on the boat, I was touring Guam—hiking in the jungle, birding, taking pictures, snorkeling, window shopping, restaurant hopping. Gradually, a few of my crew mates joined me on these excursions. What had started out as a soul-sucking layover in a suburb of hell turned into a free vacation in paradise.

Now, I'm not saying the heat was all in my head, but certainly there is a mental component to the malaise wrought by hot, humid days. So here I am in Austin, Texas, in one of the hottest summers in the past decade (temps in the triple digits, only occasional cool snaps down to the upper 90s), and I've been staying indoors with the air conditioning. As I noted last time, I get up at 5 a.m. to do my (almost) daily walks just to avoid the heat.

Well, last week, I finally took a plunge I'd been avoiding for a decade: I bought a grill. I don't think I'm suffering any kind of testosterone crisis, but I have been getting quite tired of heating up the whole house at every other meal. I also realized that I had been avoiding grilling because it didn't make much sense to stand over a hot grill on a hundred-degree day. Me, avoiding the heat? Why? CAVEAT: this blog entry won't include any grill recipes. I'm a grilling novice. Sort of. I've cooked on charcoal grills, and thirty years ago, I worked for a few months as a grillardin, but that was a long time ago. I have a lot to recall, relearn, reinvent. I've got a start on it—I've grilled chicken breasts, carnitas, tuna steaks, spatchcocked chicken, shrimp, sirloin kebabs, and pizza—but I'm not there yet, confidence wise. I'll get back to you on this.

Chill

Of course, one of the simple solutions to the heat is to avoid cooking, altogether. Salads, tartares, sashimi, carpaccios, crudos—no fire in the house means the house stays cool. Fresh baguettes or artisanal crackers from the grocery store round out the meal. That's more or less what I was doing, frequently, prior to getting the grill.

Last year on an episode of Top Chef one blogging food critic (*cough* pretentious jerk-off New Yorker *cough*) made a negative comment about a tuna tartare before even tasting it. Essentially, his complaint was, "This dish is so last year." Now, yes, I know that foods of one sort or another do go in and out of style, and I understand that the passion for a particular food or treatment can make it seem old even faster, but I don't think tuna tartare is quite there yet. In all fairness, I'm in Austin, maybe the restaurants in New York have overdone the presentation of tuna tartare. I hope not. Tuna tartare, done right, is sumptuous, rich, and satisfying.

Another caveat: all measurements are approximations—guesses, really. I just toss in what looks right, taste, and adjust as I go along.

Tuna tartare Japonaise with fennel-apple salad
serves 4

dramatis personae

tartare

sashimi-grade tuna
one small carrot
two tablespoons minced chives
two tablespoons minced basil
one tablespoon sesame seeds
juice of one lime
one tablespoon tamari
two teaspoons wasabi
one teaspooon sesame oil

salad

one quarter cup pignolis
one medium Fuji apple, unpeeled, cored, and sliced thinly
juice of one lemon
one fennel bulb, cored and sliced thinly
one quarter cup radicchio chiffonade
four ounces ricotta salata, cut or broken into half-inch chunks

dressing

one teaspoon fennel fronds, minced
two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
one tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
one teaspoon tarragon vinegar
dash of tabasco sauce
one teaspoon Dijon mustard
black pepper
salt

quality of ingredients

I've never had any trouble with tuna steaks. for raw preparations. You want either the freshest, reddest tuna steaks you can find (first choice) or frozen steaks labeled "sashimi-grade." If you're selecting from fresh tuna steaks, the tuna should be glistening and slightly translucent and have a gentle, sweet aroma. If you smell even a hint of ammonia, pass it by.

Carrots should always be crisp. Don't use rubbery carrots; they tend to be bitter.

Chives should be deep green and neither limp nor bruised. Dice from the tips of the chives, which are more flavorful than the base.

Basil leaves should also be dark green and neither limp nor discolored.

Limes should be dark green (as much as half yellow is okay) and firm but not too hard. Unlike lemon zest, which softens with age, the zest of a lime desiccates with age and takes on a texture like melamine.

If you don't have tamari, you can use soy sauce. If the soy is too dark, thin it one-to-one with water.

Pignolis should be solid and free of blemishes.

Fennel bulbs should be white and firm. A few light brown blemishes are acceptable, but deep, translucent blemishes can't be removed. The fronds should be dark green and not wilted.

Fuji apples should be solid and free of bruises.

Lemon juice should always come from fresh lemons, not from a green bottle.

Radicchio leaves should be purple and white, and free of brown splotches. If the outer leaves are becoming brown at the edges, remove and discard them. The leaves underneath should be okay.

White balsamic vinegar is a fairly recent introduction to American supermarkets, and it's one of those special foods that excites a good deal of anger and excitement among purists. Frankly, I don't understand the problem. Real balsamic vinegar (labeled "aceto balsamico tradizionale") is made by cooking grape musts to carmelize them and then aging the resulting liquid in a series of successively smaller wooden barrels for a minimum of 12 years. The traditionally aged stuff costs a small fortune, and fine restaurants dole it out in drops. The stuff we get in the supermarkets that does not say "aceto balsamico tradizionale"—even the aged stuff—is made differently. Most of the commercial grade balsamico is made in Modena and Reggio Emilia, near where the tradizionale is produced. The commercial grade stuff is made by adding the same cooked musts to a little bit of wine vinegar. So, the only difference between white balsamic vinegar and the dark stuff is that the musts in the white balsamic aren't caramelized. What's really important here is that white balsamic is a tasty substitute for balsamic where the dark, caramelly richness of OTC balsamic vinegar would be inappropriate.

preparation notes

Unlike beef, tuna for tartare should not be minced too finely. A quarter-inch dice works great. This not only reduces the amount of work you have to do, it provides a dish with a better mouth-feel. Chopped too finely the tuna feels mushy. Mix the solid ingredients before adding the liquids.

For the salad, first, toast the pignolis over high heat in a non-stick skillet with no oil. Shake the pan constantly to prevent burning the pignolis. Once the pignolis are uniformly golden brown, pour them into the salad bowl. Slice the apples, put them in a small bowl. Toss the apple slices with the juice of one lemon and set them aside. Combine the fennel, pignolis, radicchio, and cheese.

Mix the dressing and set it aside.

When ready to serve, pour the excess lemon juice off of the apple slices and toss them into the salad. Dress the salad either just prior to serving or at the table.

Serve the tartare and salad with a baguette or similar crunchy bread.