Slammon

This morning I did some much-needed shopping, and also picked up some things for the garden; the experiments at overwintering some of the veggies have been so successful that I started a bunch of things in the ground a month early, figuring that the plastic will protect them from the colder nights. Time will tell, but they're all hardy things and should be fine (until we tear them from the ground and devour them, that is.) I also picked a bunch of beautiful turnips, which I shredded along with our horseradish, plus fennel, pak choi, jicama, leek, carrots, and daikon and packed into the fermenting crock to make a hot slaw to accompany all the grilled and smoked things that lurk right around the corner.

For tonight, post slaw-making, I took the 10-grain/burdock mixture from osso buco night and formed it into patties, floured them, and fried them in the fry oil from last night. Want to make something good taste better? Cook it in (gently) used French fry oil. I didn't stuff them with cheese or anything, since I ate our last hunk of stanky taleggio as a snack while cooking. Because of the high proportion of polenta in the mix, these ended up like the mutant children of hush puppies and arancini. But in a delicious, crispy way.

And I braised shredded fennel until it was meltingly tender, and pan-roasted the fish, and cooked the greens from our turnips in the fish pan to wilt them and clean it, and opened some wine. A 2005 (I know, I swore off them, but there wasn't anything else that felt right) Jadot Vosne-Romanée. I have mixed feelings about Jadot, but this was a pretty good deal so I bought it. Now that it's been open for a bit, it might be relaxing, but from now on all the 05's go to their room until 2010 or later. Unless someone else bought it. Or there's no other pinot to match with salmon. Or it's Tuesday. Or Thursday.