boiled salad.

hello, yes, admittedly this post is up because instagram is down, let blogspot benefit from north virginia's woes.

you guys, do you know KirkK? he is the founder of one of the few blogs i read regularly, mmm-yoso, which chronicles the culinary adventures of Kirk and his lovely wife and dogs, along with Ed from Yuma and Cathy. it's based in the san diego area, but you'll never know when nor where he and the blog might head out. recently, i read a great series of posts about their holiday in Crete; one post in particular stood out because of the very simple but intriguing dish that Kirk cooked for dinner one night: boiled new potatoes and zucchini, dressed with olive oil and sea salt.   

really, you are saying. and i mean like this:   o, rly?  o_O

yeah, i know. but i'm the kind of person who will gnaw on a cold boiled potato dipped in salt for dinner,  or lately, half a head of iceberg lettuce dipped in lemon and soy sauce. i think it's partially a bodily rebellion against all the other food i eat, which is relatively complicated compared to a boiled root vegetable. the key, i think, to Kirk's dish's success is that he got his produce straight from the farm (via a farmers' market), and had most likely been picked less than 24 hours from the time he cooked and ate it. there is v. little chance of that happening here. my boiled potato and zucchini was okay. 

 

luckily, internetz and a basically-stocked larder led to a lidia bastianich recipe for a salad of said ingredients, plus hard-boiled eggs and a vinaigrette. not far off from the original intrigue, but somewhat more satisfying with my run-of-the-mill produce. it is the simplest thing, just a matter of boiling and chopping. it is a boiled salad of beauty: light yet substantial, lots of flavour without a lot of ingredients, ideal for hot summer days or really lazy nights.

the recipe is here.