We had dinner guests, a family of four, and I harvested peppers from the garden. Until then I hadn’t realized how many different varieties of pepper I had growing (bell pepper, poblano, jalapeño, and a sweet variety the color of a shriveled space alien), and I omitted the two hot peppers before adding the rest to a pile of tomatoes I used to make gazpacho. My working gazpacho recipe calls for a lot of garlic, so much that it probably becomes a distraction, so I add a little sugar for balance. I put corn on the cob on the grill and made salmon with chraimeh sauce, from Jerusalem by Ottolenghi and Tamimi. The recipe comes from Tripolitan Jews, and the only difficult part of this simple preparation is that you must be careful not to burn the spices. Combine garlic, cumin, coriander, paprika, cinnamon, and caraway, processing them with olive oil to form a paste. Brown the salmon and remove it from the pan, then cook the paste in oil for about 30 seconds. Quickly cool the spices by adding 3 tablespoons of tomato paste and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to make a red sauce, and return the salmon to the pan. You end up having fish with a Middle Eastern aroma, which is not something I have every day in an American kitchen.
The extra people to feed gave me an opportunity cut up a watermelon, which is always too much food when it’s just us. One can imagine my surprise when I found out it was yellow. On the Internet I learned that yellow watermelons are real, and their taste is similar to a pink watermelon but a little closer to honey. I turned it into a salad with feta cheese, mint and sage, and lime juice. “It has a very distinctive taste,” said the eleven-year-old who was eating with us, which is the best compliment I can receive.
(Photo: Tomatoes, August.)
365 Days of Food 