HOME & LIVING
B2 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2022
Lack cooking instincts? Don’t worry, you can learn
CRUSHED
ORANGE AND
ROSEMARY-
BRAISED LAMB
WITH CRUNCHY
PISTACHIO
YOGURT
By BEN MIMS
Los Angeles Times
n his fi rst cookbook, Andy
Baraghani instructs cooks on
how to trust their instincts.
Cooking by instinct is often
heralded as the secret to becoming
a better home cook, but not
everyone is born with a cooking
intuition. It can be taught, how-
ever, and there’s no better teacher
than Andy Baraghani. I’ve been
friends with Baraghani for over
10 years now, and he’s one of the
few people I know whose cooking
I would eat with no question —
and that’s because he has a great
cook’s knack for knowing just
how to create simple but revela-
tory dishes.
In his fi rst cookbook, called
“The Cook You Want To Be,” the
Bay Area native and former Bon
Appétit food editor and video star
not only shows readers how he
cooks — with luxuriously vibrant
photos of his colorful, enticing
dishes — but how they can hone
that instinct for themselves in
their own everyday cooking.
In a crunchy salad of sliced
fennel, he walks you through pos-
sible substitutes so that if you
don’t have one of the requisite
ingredients he calls for, you defi -
nitely have some analog that
will bring the salty, fatty, spicy
fl avors he calls for to make
the fennel pop. And in a lush
braise of lamb shoulder, a bath
of chiles, rosemary, orange peel
and wine imbues the meat with
bold fl avors that are lightened by a
tangy yogurt fl avored with lemon,
raisins and pistachios.
Infl uenced by stints at Chez
Panisse and top restaurants in
New York, as well as his own Per-
sian heritage, Baraghani’s cooking
is simple, bold and inviting, and
he shows a keen maneuvering of
spices and herbs that brings oth-
erwise simple vegetables or meats
to life in a way that many other
cooks can’t. And while all that
may seem intimidating, don’t
worry. He arms you with all the
same skills he’s learned over the
years so you can execute intrin-
sically lush and lively dishes just
like him.
I
FENNEL SALAD
WITH SPICY
GREEN OLIVES
AND CRUSHED
PISTACHIOS
By Andy Baraghani
Time: 30 minutes
Yields: Serves 4
This fennel salad is slightly over the top.
Do I really need the nuts and the cheese?
(Yes, but it’s up to you if you keep them.)
Is this salad gonna be good if you don’t
DAIRY
Continued from Page B1
fortifi ed soy milk.
The recommended
amount of calcium needed
for children and adults
varies. An adult usually
needs 1,000-1,300 milli-
grams per day, though this
depends on age and gender
according to the National
Institutes of Health. A child
9-18 years of age needs
1,300 milligrams per day.
Women who are pregnant
SPICE
Continued from Page B1
Preheat one side of your gas
grill to medium-high heat for
10-15 minutes, 400°F to 450°F,
or push hot coals to one side of
a charcoal grill. The chicken will
be transferred to the unheated
side of the grill to fi nish cooking
without direct heat.
Place chicken thighs, skin side
down, on the oiled grates over
the lit side of the grill. Close cover
and grill for 3 to 5 minutes, or until
you see good grill marks form.
Flip the thighs and grill over direct
By Andy Baraghani
Time: 5 hours 30 minutes
Yields: Serves 8
This is the big, showy piece of meat
you’ve been waiting for. The green garlic,
citrus and yogurt contrast with the rich,
heavy lamb, lending freshness to liven up
the deep, braised fl avor. And although
any large cut of meat can seem intimidat-
ing to prepare, most of the work happens
in the oven. The result is lamb so tender
it’s almost jelly-soft.
Lorena Jones Books
“The Cook You Want to Be,” by Andy Baraghani.
Cooking by instinct is often heralded as the secret to
becoming a better home cook, but not everyone is born
with a cooking intuition. It can be taught, however, and
there’s no better teacher than Andy Baraghani.
have mint? Yep. Swap Planters cocktail
peanuts you found in your pantry for
the pistachios? Sure. What if you just use
ground pepper and skip the red? OK.
The important step is eating this salad as
soon as you dress the fennel. You want
that full crunch experience. The crushed
green olives should be big and fl eshy, like
a chunky relish to contrast the icy bite of
the fennel. It’s baroque and bright and
briny. All that acidity in the salad begs to
be paired with juicy pork chops or a steak.
1 cup green olives, such as
Castelvetrano or Picholine
1/3 cup toasted pistachios, fi nely chopped
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil,
plus more for drizzling
¼ teaspoon crushed red chile fl akes
1 lemon
Kosher salt and freshly
ground black pepper
2 fennel bulbs, woody stalks
and fronds trimmed
½ cup mint leaves, torn if large
2 ounces Parmesan, thinly
sliced (about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1. Using the side of a chef’s knife or
the bottom of a mug, crush the olives.
Tear out the pits, leaving the olives a little
craggy. Scoop them into a small bowl and
add the pistachios, olive oil and red chile
fl akes. Using a Microplane, fi nely grate
the zest of half of the lemon over the olive
mixture, season with salt and ground
pepper and set aside. It should look like a
chunky relish.
2. If you see brown jagged streaks on
the fennel, remove an outer layer. Trim
and discard about ½ inch from the root
end of both fennel bulbs. Thinly slice the
fennel bulb crosswise, starting from the
base. It doesn’t need to be paper-thin.
You’re going for about ¼-inch-thick slices.
(This would be a good time to use the
mandoline you bought.)
3. In a large bowl, combine the fennel,
mint, cheese and vinegar. Finely grate the
zest of the remaining half of the lemon
over the fennel salad. Halve the lemon
and squeeze the juice into the bowl,
catching any seeds with your other hand.
Drizzle the salad with a little olive oil and
season with salt. Toss until every piece
of fennel is nicely coated. I like my fennel
salad tangy, but you can add another
tablespoon of oil if you want it less tart.
4. Spoon the olive relish onto a platter
or plates and scatter the dressed fennel
over it, trying to make it as architectural as
you want (it’s OK to play with your food).
Serve immediately.
— Reprinted from “The Cook You Want
To Be” (Lorena Jones, 2022) by Andy
Baraghani.
Make Ahead: Go ahead and
toast your nuts, pit your olives,
and slice your cheese a few hours
ahead—but don’t assemble this
salad until you’re ready to serve
it. The fennel will lose its crucial
crispness if you dress it in advance.
or breastfeeding may need
1,200-1,300 milligrams per
day. To put this in context,
8 ounces of plain, low-fat
yogurt contains 415 milli-
grams of calcium, 1 cup of
100% orange juice, forti-
fi ed with calcium, has 349
milligrams. An ounce of
parmesan cheese has 331
milligrams of calcium, and
a cup of fresh cooked kale
has 94 milligrams.
Calcium is an important
nutrient as it helps muscles
contract, including the heart
muscle and it transmits sig-
nals to nerves in the body.
For those who are lac-
tose intolerant (the inability
to digest dairy foods), or
who choose not to consume
dairy products (vegans),
there are options for cal-
cium consumption. Forti-
fi ed orange juice or leafy
green vegetables, such as
broccoli or kale are exam-
ples of foods, which are
nondairy but contain cal-
cium. Almonds are another
source of calcium. If you
think you are not getting
enough calcium in your
heat again, an additional 3 to 5
minutes.
Move the chicken to the cool
side of the grill, skin side up, brush
with more paste, and close the lid.
After 10 minutes, brush the
thighs with more paste. Using an
instant-read thermometer, check
the temperature of the chicken.
It should read between 150-155
degrees.
Close lid and continue cooking
until the thighs reach 165-170
degrees, 10 to 15 minutes more.
When done, remove chicken
thighs from grill, brush with more
paste and let rest for 10 minutes
before serving.
While chicken is resting, prepare
cucumber salad: In small bowl, stir
together soy sauce, vinegar and
sugar. Add cucumber slices, and
toss to combine. Add chili powder
and sesame seeds, and toss again;
taste and season with additional
chili powder as desired. Add
chopped onion, and toss again.
Place chicken on a platter and
garnish with chopped chives,
sliced scallions and toasted sesa-
me seeds. Serve immediately with
steamed rice and cucumber salad
on the side.
Serves 4.
— simplyrecipes.com
You can either go bold and serve it on
the bone or let it cool and tear it into
shreddy shards, then toss those back into
the braising liquid to warm. Important
announcement: Crisp up any leftovers in
a pan with neutral oil (or use the rendered
lamb fat to fry a couple eggs and pop
them on top) and add a crunchy salad for
next night’s dinner.
BRAISED LAMB
1 bone-in lamb shoulder (6-to 7-pound)
Kosher salt
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 red onions, quartered
through the root end
6 green garlic stalks, coarsely chopped,
or 2 garlic heads, sliced crosswise
4 strips (2-inch) orange peel
1 handful rosemary or thyme
sprigs and/or bay leaves
2 dried chiles de árbol, or 1/2 teaspoon
crushed red chile fl akes
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
2 cups dry white wine
1 quart good store-bought
chicken stock or water
CRUNCHY PISTACHIO YOGURT
2 tablespoons raisins, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, fi nely grated
3 cups full-fat Greek yogurt
1/3 cup toasted pistachios,
coarsely chopped
Kosher salt
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
1. To make the braised lamb: Pat the
meat dry with paper towels and then sea-
son all over with salt. (If you can do this a
day ahead and chill the lamb, great. If not,
carry on.) Heat the oven to 325 degrees
Fahrenheit.
2. Pour ¼ cup of the olive oil into a
heavy ovenproof pot, large enough to
hold the lamb comfortably, and place it
over medium-high heat. Add the lamb
and sear all over, waiting until the under-
side has become deeply brown and cara-
melized before turning, 4 to 6 minutes per
side (15 to 20 minutes total). You want the
lamb to caramelize while rendering some
of its fat. Using tongs, lift and transfer the
lamb to a plate and set aside. Carefully
tilt the fat out of the pot into a small bowl
diet, consult your primary
care provider to see if they
recommend a supplement.
For more information
and recipes using dairy
products visit www.food-
hero.org, or call the Oregon
State University Exten-
sion Service offi ce at
541-426-3143.
█
Ann Bloom has worked for the OSU
Extension Service for 15 years as
a nutrition educator. She studied
journalism and education at
Washington State University. She lives
in Enterprise.
and save for another use, such as for
cooking bitter greens or adding richness
to a pot of brothy beans.
3. Return the pot to medium heat and
pour in the remaining ¼ cup olive oil.
Add the onions and green garlic and give
them a stir so they get nicely coated in
the oil. Cook, stirring occasionally, until
they have taken on a golden brown color
in spots (they won’t be soft, but that’s OK),
4 to 6 minutes.
4. Crush the orange peels and rose-
mary sprigs in your hands and scatter
them over the onions and green garlic,
along with the chiles and fennel seeds.
Warm them a bit to release their aromas,
10 to 15 seconds, remove the pot from
the stove and place the lamb back into
the pot. Pour in the wine and chicken
broth; the liquid should come just slightly
above the halfway point on the side of
the meat. If you need more, just add more
broth, if you have it, or water.
5. Place the pot in the oven, uncovered,
and braise the lamb, fl ipping it every 45
minutes or so to make sure it’s cook-
ing evenly, until the liquid has slightly
reduced and the meat is begging to pull
away from the bone, 3½ to 4 hours. Using
tongs, transfer the lamb to a cutting
board and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes.
6. Strain the braising liquid into a me-
dium saucepan, picking out and tasting a
jammy onion or garlic clove that has been
cooked to death but is still somehow
satisfying. Give the braising liquid a taste;
it will be on the oily side. The lamb will
have rendered quite a bit of fat that you’ll
want to skim mostly but not completely
off . Although fat is fl avor, too much fat
can prevent you from tasting the other
ingredients. At this point, you have a few
options and I advise you to apply this
technique with any braise you do. Serve
the braising liquid on the side as a sauce
for the lamb (as instructed here), save it
for another meal or use it as a base for a
soup or stew. Find your match. I tend to
reduce the braising liquid over medium
heat until it just barely coats the back of
a spoon (10 to 15 minutes) but you can
reduce it further, by half or more. Just re-
member, as the liquid reduces, the broth
becomes richer and more concentrated
in fl avor and will go from barely coating
the back of the spoon to clinging onto it
for dear life. Pour the reduced liquid into a
small pitcher for serving.
7. To make the pistachio yogurt: In a
medium bowl, stir together the raisins,
lemon juice and garlic. Let sit for 5 min-
utes to soften the raisins. Add the yogurt
and pistachios and then season with salt.
Give it all a stir.
8. When the lamb is cool enough to
handle, pull or carve the meat into big
shardy pieces and arrange them on a
platter. Or, if you feel especially comfort-
able with your crowd, just put a knife and
fork on the platter and let people tear into
it. Pass the warm braising liquid to spoon
over the lamb and the pistachio yogurt to
dollop on top.
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