Tamarind Ginger Fizz

My beverages of choice? Water and wine. Every once in a while I can get into a good beer, and I'll drink pretty much any cocktail mixed by the geniuses behind the bar at Restaurant Eve. But when I grab something to drink, it's almost always either a tall glass of ice-cold water, or a spot of vino.

If I'm going to indulge in other liquid calories, I want something interesting, something that makes me go "hmm." I want something refreshing and zippy. I definitely want some lime. And I want there to be something delicious around the rim.

Enter Tamarind Ginger Fizz, the most quaffable drink of spring (and summer...) and only the second drink to take up real estate on NDP. (Remember the first one? Boy was that fun.) It checks all the boxes on my drink checklist: intrigue (the tamarind), refreshing and zippy (lime, seltzer, and mint), and something delicious around the rim (an addictive blend of chili, sugar, and salt). Also, it's beautiful. Isn't it?

I can imagine serving this on a warm afternoon on my deck. If I had a deck, that is. Still, I can imagine drinking this at my kitchen table, peering out the window, after a long hard day of making this drink and taking its beauty shots. It's the sort of drink that feels luxurious all by itself -- deck optional.

Surprise! This is yet another fabulous recipe from Food52, my new go-to source for fun things to make. And guess what? The Food52 editors have selected my rhubarb shortbread recipe as a finalist in last week's "your best rhubarb" contest! I'm on a roll, y'all - give this lady another win! If you've got an account, go vote for me now. If you don't, make an account. It's quick and easy, and it'll be the best thing you do for your cooking life this year, guaranteed.

Tamarind Ginger Fizz adapted from wanderdash on Food52

note: I had sweetened tamarind pulp (homemade), which is about 2/3 tamarind and 1/3 sugar, so I changed the proportions here to about 1 cup tamarind pulp and 1 cup sugar. I still found it very much on the sweet side. If you're using unsweetened tamarind pulp, I recommend starting with 1 cup sugar, which you'll use to make the ginger syrup, and then adding more to the final drink if it isn't sweet enough.

3/4 cups ginger, peeled and roughly chopped 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 cup water 3/4 cups tamarind pulp 1/4 cup lime juice, freshly squeezed 1 cup mint, stems removed 6 sprigs mint, for garnish 1.5 liters seltzer water 1 wedge lime

For the rim sugar: 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon kosher salt 2 tablespoons chili powder

In a small saucepan, combine ginger, 1 cup sugar, and water. Bring to a boil over high heat, and cook about 5 minutes, until ginger has softened and syrup has thickened. Transfer to a heat-safe container, and refrigerate until ready to make the drink.

Meanwhile, make the rim sugar: combine chili, salt, and sugar with a fork until uniformly distributed.

When ginger syrup has cooled, combine half of it in a pitcher with tamarind and mint leaves. Muddle the mint in the pitcher to break up the leaves slightly.

Slide a lime around the rim of each glass, then dunk glasses one by one into the rim sugar, moving them back and forth to evenly coat them. Squeeze the lime into the pitcher and toss the wedge in.

Add the seltzer to the pitcher and mix well. Then pour the drink into glasses, holding the solids back with a spoon. Garnish each glass with a sprig of mint and serve.

Pasta Primavera

Forget that crap they serve in bad Italian restaurants. (All year round, mind you. Does anyone else see the irony in that?) This is the real thing. It's spring (did you hear?), and this is a pasta dish that shows off the season's finest. It's a dead-simple preparation that doesn't skimp on flavor, and it takes mere minutes to throw together.

It's hardly a recipe, I confess. But that's mostly because it can be made any which way, with whatever spring vegetables are in your fridge now. If you see this and think, "I need this right now," I gotcha. Variations of this recipe have been my lunch 5 days out of the past two weeks. I started with asparagus, mushrooms, and peas. When I roasted some late-season brussels sprouts one night for dinner, I added the leftovers to my pasta for the next day's lunch. If you have other vegetables -- favas, carrots, whatever -- they'd be lovely here as well. And yes, I tossed in a forkful of the caramelized onions I keep in the fridge. What's pasta primavera without'em?

And one more tip for this lovely Friday: many spring vegetables, including peas, asparagus, mushrooms, scallions, and favas, have bits that you discard, be they tough stems, or pods. Instead of simply throwing them away, along with their wonderful flavor, here's a fresh idea for what to do with them: stick them in a big pot of boiling water, add a whole onion, and maybe a few stems from your basil or mint leaves, plus some salt. Bring to a simmer, and cook for about 20 minutes. Let cool overnight in the fridge, then strain through a strainer lined with either cheese cloth or 2 paper towels (yes, it really works). Pour the strained liquid into ice cube trays, and freeze. Now you've got the most flavorful, aromatic spring vegetable broth, stored in easy-to-use ice cubes. I have a gallon-size bag full of these cubes, and they're the perfect addition to pasta primavera.

Pasta Primavera serves 4, or 2 hungry people plus weekday lunch leftovers

1 pound any kind of pasta; I've used penne, macaroni, and shells, all great olive oil caramelized onions, if you've got'em 2 scallions, chopped finely 1 1/2 pounds any of the following: asparagus, peas, mushrooms, brussels sprouts, fava beans, or other spring vegetable 1/2 cup vegetable broth or water 2/3 cup grated parmigiano reggiano or pecorino cheese a couple pieces fresh mozzarella or spoonfuls fresh ricotta, optional salt and pepper a couple leaves fresh basil, mint, or both

If using fava beans, remove beans from pod, boil for about 5 minutes, and remove beans from waxy coating. Reserve; you'll add them to the finished dish.

Boil pasta.

Meanwhile, drizzle a couple tablespoons olive oil in a wide saute pan and heat on medium-high. Add caramelized onions and/or scallions and stir to soften, 2 minutes. Then add mushrooms -- you want them to really fry up and release their flavor. When mushrooms have sizzled, sizzled some more, and finally released their juice, sprinkle a pinch of salt. Leave heat around medium-high. (If you're in a rush, as I was one night, you can skip this step and add everything all together.)

If you're doing this in stages, add the slower-cooking vegetables, like brussels and asparagus, next. If you need a drizzle more olive oil, go for it. When the asparagus and sprouts have been coated in the oil and have started to develop some color on the underside, turn heat down to medium. Add about 1/4 cup broth or water to the pan; it will boil vigorously, then calm down. Add a pinch of salt.

When asparagus are starting to soften, add extra broth if pan is dry, and then add peas. You'll cook the vegetables for about 3 minutes after peas are added, just long enough to warm them through. At this point, pasta will be done -- drain and reserve.

Add the pasta to the pan with the vegetables, and use tongs to toss pasta and "sauce" together. Add cheese, toss to coat, and serve immediately.

Linzertorte

If you've eaten your vegetables -- in this salad and this delightfully spring-y side dish and oh, this is quite nice, too, I forgot about it! -- I've got some dessert for you. It's Linzer Torte, and it's such a steadfast ritual in this house, I'm practically embarrassed to have not shared it before now.

In a world where desserts are froufrou and frosted and altogether cupcaketastic, Linzer is a refreshing aberration. It's dark, dense, and jammy, with not a dab of frosting in sight. Granted, it's a bit on the fussy side. But between you and me, if you want to skip the whole lattice crust situation and just plop clumps of the dough on top of the jam, it'll taste just as good. The almond flour dough is spiked with cinnamon, cloves, and lemon zest. There are egg yolks. There is raspberry jam. I'm pretty sure I've done my job -- you want some, right?

No problem. We'll get right to it. First things first: go forth and get ye some very good raspberry jam. You're meant to use black raspberry, but red works just fine (it's what I usually use). None of the crappy junk -- there's a whole layer of this cake that's nothing but jam, so you may as well invest in the good stuff. I like St. Dalfour brand; if you live in DC, the raspberry preserves from Star Hollow Farm are wonderful. You can get them at the AdMo market. Of course, you could always make them yourself.

Next, get some almonds. Here's a secret: While the recipe has you toast and then blend almonds into a fine powder, you can also buy almond flour, and toast it. I've provided instructions below, just in case you want to be fabulously lazy.

Fear not, there's plenty of fuss to make later on. If you opt to go all the way with the lattice crust, there are a couple ways to shortcut. Naturally, I've listed all the tricks I know. Just do me a favor: don't let the project-y nature of the torte get in the way of making it. Few things are worth the trouble like Linzer Torte.

Linzer Torte adapted from The New Best Recipe

1 1/2 cups sliced almonds with skins (6 oz) or equal weight almond flour 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 cup sugar 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 2 egg yolks (1 egg will work in a pinch, I've tried it) 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup red-raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350. If using whole almonds, spread on baking sheet in a single layer and toast about 8 minutes, until golden brown. If using almond flour, spread on baking sheet just the same, but toast about 5 minutes, checking frequently, until golden. Process whole almonds until very fine. Mix with flour, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and lemon zest in a medium bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar on medium-high until light, fluffy, and well-combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add egg yolks and vanilla and mix on medium until combined; batter will look somewhat clumpy, and that's okay. Add flour mixture and mix on low just until combined. Form dough into a ball, wrap in plastic, and chill at least 30 minutes.

Turn oven up to 400. Divide dough in half. Shape one half into a flat disk and return to the fridge; take the other half and press into a 9-inch tart pan with false bottom. You can try using a flat measuring cup or ramekin to even out the dough layer, but I find the dough too sticky for this to work, so I use my palm, and it works just fine. Be sure to press it up the sides as well. Chill 15 minutes.

Prick dough a couple times with a fork, line it with foil, fill with pie weights or beans or rice, and bake 20 minutes. Remove weights, and bake until barely golden, about 5 minutes longer. Lower heat to 350.

Spread the raspberry jam over the partially-cooled bottom crust in an even layer, all the way to the edges.

Here's the fussy part: take the remaining dough out of the fridge, and roll to 1/8-inch thick between two layers of lightly floured parchment or wax paper. Peel off the top layer of paper, and use a very sharp knife or blade to slice dough and parchment together into about 10 even strips, trimming and reserving scraps. Be sure to slice all the way through to the parchment, so that your strips are easily handled.

At this point, you're going to lay strips of dough into a lattice (or lattice-like) crust). To lay a strip down, pick it up at either end by the parchment, hold it parchment-side down over the spot you want it to go, and flip it over. The strip will start to peel away from the parchment. Set the strip correctly in place, and peel back the parchment.

There are two options for how to do this:

1. Lay down two strips, in the same direction, one about 75% of the way to the left side of the tart and one 75% of the way to the right side. Turn the tart 90 degrees. Repeat: lay down two strips, in different spots, perpendicular to the first two you laid down. Turn tart again, and continue laying strips and turning tart until all strips have been used. This will give the illusion of a lattice, without all the fuss.

2. Say to hell with the lattice: lay half the strips in one direction, rotate the tart, and lay the other half down in the perpendicular to the first half.

The tart will look beautiful either way; but do us all a favor, and don't try to actually weave these strips, because it won't work.

When your top is arranged as you want it, bake about 1 hour. When jam is bubbling and top crust is browned, remove from the oven and set on a rack to cool, which will take 2-3 hours. Serve at room temperature. You might dust the top with powdered sugar before serving. Store in the fridge; tart is actually quite delicious after a night in the cold.

Spring Salads

Back in March, when I posted the fourth or fifth consecutive recipe calling for raw fennel, I started to get guilt pangs. Readers, you must have thought I'd gone mad with all that fennel! Truth be told, I'd only recently come to love the vegetable, and once I discovered how delicious it was, the wheels started turning and wouldn't stop. Fennel was everywhere.

Well, those days are behind us now. I have one lonely bulb of fennel in the fridge, and while I do plan to use it in a salad, I promise not to bore you with yet another fennel recipe. No no. Today is about salads that celebrate Spring produce. When there're asparagus to discuss, who wants to talk fennel?

That's what I thought.

Today, we're talking salads. Some scream spring, with asparagus tips and pickled ramps. Others are studies in simplicity: my favorite was this weekend's fix, a big bowl of butter lettuce with a spicy-sweet horseradish dressing from food52 and some butter-toasted breadcrumbs. I've shared a couple recipes below, including that wonderful horseradish dressing. It calls for bottled horseradish, but I made my own (yes, we already know I'm crazy, no need to dwell) and, well, let just say that my allergies are gone, my nose nice and clear.

But recipes aside, folks: just take a look at what's in your fridge. Are there asparagus? Great. Saute, blanch, or roast them until tender but still firm. Chop. Into the bowl. Do you have any lettuce? Arugula? Cabbage? Toss it in, too. If it's cabbage, slice it really thinly, or just let it sit in a couple teaspoons of lemon juice or vinegar, some olive oil, and a couple pinches of salt for about 10 minutes. It'll soften right up. Radishes would be lovely, as well. Don't shy away from fruit, either. A sliced pear does wonders for a bowl of arugula and some pickled ramps. And between you and me, I'll be first in line at the farmers' market when the tomatoes sweeten up. They're great in any salad, anytime.

Horseradish Dressing adapted from Linz @Different Kind of Human, via Food52

1 lemon 3 tablespoons creme fraiche 3 tablespoons plain whole milk yogurt 1 tablespoon honey 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish 2 tablespoons dijon mustard 1 pinch salt 1 pinch freshly ground pepper

Linzarella has you zest the whole lemon, but squeeze only half of it. I'm a sour lover (you know that), so I used the whole lemon and wasn't sorry. If you're nervous about how much to use, combine everything else in a jar, add half the lemon juice, and then taste and adjust accordingly. This dressing is yet another new staple.

Butter Lettuce Salad with Horseradish Dressing serves 2 as a main, 4 as an appetizer

2 heads butter lettuce, cleaned 3 radishes, thinly sliced (not pictured) 1/2 cup bread crumbs 1 tablespoon butter 1/3 cup horseradish dressing (recipe above)

Tear lettuce into large bite-sized pieces. Toss into salad bowl or plate individually. Sprinkle radish slices overtop.

In a small frying pan, add butter and heat on medium. When butter is melted and has started to bubble, add breadcrumbs and distribute with a wooden spoon. Cook, stirring occasionally, until bread crumbs have evenly browned. Remove from heat.

Dress salads with horseradish dressing as desired. Sprinkle breadcrumbs overtop, and serve immediately.