Saturday at the Grill

Last night we had friends over for cocktails and a night at the grill. I'll do the cocktails in the separate post. The food is here.

As starters I did : almonds sauteed in olive oil and then tossed with toasted cumin and salt; olives (bought "natural", i.e. without adornment, and then stored for a couple of weeks in olive oil with a crushed garlic clove, some lemon zest, and a chili. This was inspired by a Bittman post and has become a regular snack for me); and piquillos stuffed with leftover verbena-ricotta and then drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with chives.

I made a batch of quick pickles by tossing relatively thickly sliced cucumber with salt and dill fronds and then putting them in the pickle press for a couple of hours. After rinsing and wringing them out by hand I added a bit of lemon zest, a splash of cider vinegar, and some black pepper.

Of course we did a green salad.

For a second salad I shredded some white cabbage, salted it, let it stand for a few hours under pressure, rinsed it and wrung it out, and then tossed it with lemon juice, neutral oil, and some caraway seeds.

On the grill I did "leave it all out" hamburgers: good ground beef mixed with salt and then grilled. We ate these on toasted buns with grilled red onion slices and chipotle mayo.

Our dessert plan was grilled fruit with ice cream. Unfortunately by the time we came up with a plan, the only reasonable fruit left at the Coop were peaches; and they were rock hard. So instead of grilling them, I cut them in half and then poached them in sugar syrup. We ate these, drizzled with the syrup and a splash of armagnac over vanilla ice cream.

It was all very nice food, except for the cabbage salad which we forgot to take out the fridge and serve. Ah well, extra leftovers for tonight!