Mexican Street Corn Salad

Late summer is a predictable season around here. There are tomatoes on the counter, which we position strategically to keep fruit flies at bay. (I can't say we necessarily succeed - those fruit flies are such a nuisance.) There's a glut of second nectarines and peaches, perfectly ripe and 99 cents a pound from Toigo, which we consume somewhat recklessly and with pride. There are Italian plums, which find their way into this famed torte and this less famous but quite tasty cake. And then, of course, there is all the corn.

The corn is also from Toigo. It's the sweetest corn available - so sweet that Beth (wife of Jeremy, he of Andalusian gazpacho and fried squash blossoms) made a corn soup last week and fretted that it was too sweet, that it needed some lime to cut the sweetness. If you're into corn ice cream, you'll want to start with Toigo's corn.  But even if you're making something savory, as I typically do, sweet corn is a good place to start.

If you've ever ordered elote, the flavors of this dish will be familiar. Elote is Mexican street corn: a whole cob, coated in crema and chile, then dunked in cotija and finished with a squeeze of lime. It's addictive.

But sometimes you want the corn off the cob, ready to fork straight into your mouth. Enter elote salad, a chopped-and-ready version of the messier original.

Stateside versions often coat the corn in mayonnaise, which you know I despise. The salad renditions I found online also call for mayo, which makes an otherwise balanced dish look gloppy and gross. Why would you do that?  Here's my counter-proposal, cleaner and fresher and more suited to summer: sweet corn, a little butter, chile, cilantro, lime. Lots of cotija to finish. Enough forks for you and all your friends. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

And while you're bothering with 5 corn cobs at a time, save those stripped cobs. Simmer them in water for 30 minutes, and you have a killer corn stock - a perfect base for chowder and more.

Mexican Street Corn SaladServes 6 as a side dish, with leftovers

3 tablespoons butter 3 scallions, diced kernels from 5 ears yellow corn 2 teaspoons medium-mild chile flakes, or 1 teaspoon regular (hot) chile flakes (start small and add to taste) salt 1 large red tomato, diced juice of 1-2 limes (again, start with one and add if you need more acid; I used 1 1/2 limes) 4 oz. cotija cheese, grated 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Add butter to a large saute pan and set over medium heat. When butter sizzles, add scallions, toss to combine, and cook 5 minutes, until softened. Add corn, chile,  and 1 teaspoon of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, just until very fragrant and starting to soften, 3 minutes or so; you want the corn to retain some bite. This is a warm salad, not mush.

Taste corn, and add more chile and/or salt as needed. Then add tomato chunks, reserving the accumulated liquid for another use. Stir to combine, and cook about 3 minutes more, just until tomatoes are warmed through.

Add lime juice to taste. Spoon into a deep bowl, top with cilantro and cotija, and serve warm.

No-Knead Breadsticks

In recent years, seemingly in complete indifference to logic and better judgment, I've settled on and stayed loyal to a bread recipe that's a royal pain in the hinder parts. That recipe is Tartine's Country Loaf, which I make plain, but also with olives, or cherries, or semolina and sesame and raisins (a favorite to get us through the colder months). It takes forever and is extremely involved. Did you want to do something fun on Sunday? I'm sorry, I can't; I have to make bread.

the dough.

But then summer rolls around, and summer in DC, as you know, is terrible, and my will to sit through hours of proofing and kneading and rising and 500-degree baking wilts as quickly as my poor plants in the August humidity. Fortunately, there are sane people like Jim Lahey in the world, who understand that sometimes, you don't want to knead the bread, or sit at home and watch the bread, or really fuss with the bread at all. You just want to eat the bread. Is that so much to ask?

Turns out, it's not. That's why no-knead bread is wonderful (as are the manyvariations thereof). And in an effort to spruce up a recent Friday night dinner party with bread other than challah, I turned to yet another variation on Lahey's original no-knead recipe: the Stecca.

Stecca is basically a long, wide breadstick. The recipe builds only minimally on the usual no-knead formula, and the result provided a nice change of pace from our usual routine.

ready to bake

And hopefully this goes without saying, but don't feel bound to cherry tomatoes and olives; whole peeled garlic cloves, caramelized onions, or just some rosemary would also work well.

I'm starting to think you can do pretty much anything with this dough. Which is my way of saying, stay tuned for more no-knead riffs in the future.

it's really good with garlic cloves, too.

What are you making this weekend?

No-Knead BreadsticksAdapted from My Bread, by Jim Lahey

I used halved cherry tomatoes and pitted olives in most of my steccas, but I popped a couple of garlic cloves into some of the sticks, and those were really delicious. Highly recommend doing that.

3 cups bread flour, plus more for the work surface
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon instant or other active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups cool (55 to 65°F) water
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt, for sprinkling
1 pint cherry tomatoes,
1 cup pitted olives,
10 cloves of garlic, or any other topping you'd like

Combine flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a medium bowl. Add the water and mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds. Cover the bowl and let sit at room temperature until the surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough is more than doubled in size, at least 12 hours and up to 18 hours.

Generously dust a work surface with flour. Use a bowl scraper or rubber spatula to scrape the dough out of the bowl in one piece. Fold the dough over itself two or three times and gently shape it into a somewhat flattened ball. Brush the surface of the dough with some of the olive oil and sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon of the coarse salt (which will gradually dissolve on the surface).

Place a tea towel on your work surface and generously dust it with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Gently place the dough on the towel, seam side down. If the dough is tacky, dust the top lightly with wheat bran, cornmeal, or flour. Fold the ends of the tea towel loosely over the dough to cover it and place in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours. The dough is ready when it is almost doubled. If you gently poke it with your finger, it should hold the impression. If it springs back, let it rise for another 15 minutes.

Half an hour before the end of the second rise, preheat the oven to 500°F  and set a rack in the center of the oven. Oil a 13-by-18-inch rimmed baking sheet. (If not rimmed, not the end of the world, but know that your oil may dribble off the sides of the pan.)

Cut the dough into quarters. Gently stretch each piece evenly into a stick shape approximately the length of the pan. Place on the pan, leaving at least 1 inch between the loaves. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt and any toppings you're using.

Bake the baguettes for 15 to 25 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. Cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then use a strong spatula to transfer the stecca to a rack to cool thoroughly. Serve at room temperature, or reheat briefly in a warm oven.

Easing Back In

We've just returned from a week at the beach, full of silky sand and mid-afternoon beach chair dozes and lots of home-cooked meals. As anticipated, the bounce-back to real life is taking its time. We got back from Saturday lunch both ready to crash - what, we can't take catnaps every day? - and the home fridge is still empty enough that there's nothing begging to be cooked. I think this is what they call easing back in.

I'd love to give you a full write-up of where to go in Hilton Head, and what to do, but we went to none of those places, did none of that stuff. Instead, we cooked all our meals at home, basically owned the beach, and let the brain cells uncoil. It was glorious.

We biked the trails and strolled the beach at sunset. I made four pies. Could we be more cliche? I don't care.

I'm in too much of a haze to share an actual recipe today, but I will share a couple links that are perfect for this moment in summer.

This moment, for me, is about tomatoes and peaches. So first things first: make this deep-dish peach crumb pie, from Melissa Clark. You will love the crumb topping, and also the satisfied silence you hear from people who cannot accuse you of not making enough pie, because this is so much pie.

Next, when you're ready for a cleanse, make this tomato lassi from Food52, but swap out those mangoes for top-of-season peaches or nectarines. If you don't have sumac, it's okay: substitute lemon juice, or pomegranate syrup, or something else that's sweet-tart. Make a double, store it in a big jar in the fridge, and you have tomorrow's post-work snack.

Lastly, if you return from a week away to an exploding herb garden (such a problem! said no one), make this sage-pistachio pesto (I like to add some pecorino but it's not necessary) or this mint-pistachio pesto or this lovely walnut pesto, with either basil, parsley, or both. Then spoon it into small containers and stow it away for a cold winter's dinner.

I'll be back later this week with a recipe.

Zucchini-Currant Bran Muffins

In a month where you can find sweet, dribbly nectarines and burstingly juicy tomatoes pretty much everywhere, you might not be jonesing for zucchini. And considering you can pile those nectarines into a bowl of yogurt, or put some of those tomatoes on your morning toast, you're definitely not seeking a way to eat zucchini for breakfast. Convincing you that that's a good idea would be a heavy lift. And yet here I am, peddling a breakfast item pretty much loaded with summer squash. You must think the heat's gotten to me.

But I'm willing to bet at least half of you skip breakfast altogether, and a good many more - not that I know anyone in this category coughwifecough - eat those insipid, playdough-textured nutrition bars for morning meals. So here's my opening salvo: don't do that. As Sam Sifton said, "A mere 15 minutes stolen from sleep can bring stylishness to the morning, along with a feeling that the day is filled with promise rather than recrimination. Do it once, and it’s hard. Do it three times in a week, and it’s a habit." Never is that more true - or less burdensome - than when the cooking happens in advance.

So, about these muffins. I'm always looking for ways to use up oversized summer squash; an easy way is to grate them into baked goods (and fritters, and frittatas, and all manner of other things). By now, you have a recipe for zucchini bread. (You don't? Let me fix that. Let me fix that again.) Muffins are the next logical step. The zucchini are moist enough that they can stand up to a dry mix that includes some bran flour, which I added to win over the fiber fanatics among you. As for currants, they're like raisins, but better. Am I right? Use the latter if that's what you have. I'm in a don't-sweat-it mood.

Whatever you do, please - if only so I stop worrying about you - don't skip breakfast. When you get to the office on a Monday morning and the sun is shining and the HVAC isn't working and you're pretty much drenched in your own sweat, you'll be thankful that sustenance, at least, is taken care of.

Zucchini-Currant Bran Muffins Makes 12

1 cup wheat bran 
2 cups all-purpose flour (or substitute 1 cup whole wheat)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon pinch of salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk or yogurt
1 lb. zucchini/squash, grated
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line or grease a 12-cup muffin tin.

In a medium bowl, combine wheat bran, flour(s), baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

Combine sugars and butter in a mixing bowl and whisk until fully combined. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add buttermilk or yogurt, and mix until mostly combined. Add zucchini and mix to combine.

Add flour mixture, and use several long, forceful strokes to combine the flour into the wet mixture. It's okay if there are some lumps. Add the currants, and give a few more firm strokes, just until any streaks of flour disappear and currants are evenly distributed.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin using a 1/3-cup measure. Bake for 25-28 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes, then serve warm or at room temperature.