Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Tranches de Jambon en Piperade and green beans and potatoes with Beurre d’Ail.  See, now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.  I’m talkin’ a nice, simple ham steak, with lots of garlic and tomatoes and onions and peppers and probably more cayenne pepper than I should have, and when you quarter it it makes a perfect Julie-sized dinner.  Not French, in any real way, I don’t think – I guess in 1961 Americans didn’t much know the word “Basque” – but sooo good.  If a preparation of ham can be considered “refreshing,” this is it.  Not to mention the fact, and I could have said this earlier, I suppose, but “Jambon” is just a great word to say.  You can amuse yourself for several minutes, if you’re Julie, just wandering around the house saying “Jambon… Jambon… Jambon...” and bopping your head like a Rastafarian. It’s also a nice thing to make for dinner for yourself on your sixth and final night alone when you’re finally feeling relatively healthy again, because it is just a matter of slicing some things, and mashing some things, and browning some things, all actions you can easily do while sipping a glass of wine and talking with your mom on the phone, or with your husband, who’s spent the whole day trying to find his way around Bath with a couple of drunk, deaf Druids – I kid you not.  Start by browning a ham steak in olive oil.  While that’s doing, slice a small onion and maybe a quarter of a green bell pepper.  Set the ham aside, then lower the heat in the skillet and add the onions.  Let them cook, covered for five minutes, then add the peppers and let cook another five minutes.  You’re supposed to get the onions tender but not brown.  My onions did get brown – can’t tell if the brown is their own or acquired from the olive oil the ham was browning in – but no matter.  Brown onions are good, right?  Then add some peeled, seeded and slice tomatoes on top (or you know, you could probably just slice some tomatoes, that peeling stuff is probably just horseshit), along with some garlic and pepper and thyme and cayenne.  Put in too much cayenne, a nice big shake.  Especially if you’ve been eating far too much French food for the past ten months.  Cook that slowly, covered, for another five minutes, then uncover it and raise the heat to evaporate the tomato juices.  Bury the ham in the vegetable mixture and bake in the oven for twenty minutes or so. Somewhere in here, set water boiling for potatoes and green beans.  You can set the ham dish aside before putting it in the oven if you’ve gotten yourself discombobulated.  Make the Beurre d’Ail by boiling three cloves of unpeeled garlic, draining them, peeling them, and boiling them again.  Then put them in your handy mortar and pound them with your handy pestle.  Pound in a half a stick of softened butter and some salt and pepper.  Beurre d’Ail.  Toss it with your potatoes, or with your green beans, or with both. Good stuff.        7:31:51 AM    comment []