Buvette's Brussels Sprout Salad

The Soul Twin (a.k.a. my best friend, Andrea) recently celebrated a birthday.  It's the first birthday I've actually shared with her in person in...years and years.  Maybe even since we graduated college?  So I was incredibly excited to take her out to Buvette for lunch this year to celebrate live and in-person.  I'd heard amazing things about Buvette, but I just never had the chance to go...it's in the West Village after all and, like most Manhattanites, I cry and whine about having to go to the opposite side of the island.

Anyway, Buvette surpassed every expectation I had and more.  The ST and I nibbled and drank for three hours.  The restaurant folks didn't seem to care; it truly is the sort of place you can sit and enjoy as long as you want.  We had sandwiches...we had a gorgeous selection of cheeses...we had a bottle of wine...but the stand-out for us were the Brussels sprouts.  We ordered them on a bit of a whim - they were "just" a side dish and, even though we're deep into winter, we're still obsessed with trying everyone's variation on Brussels sprouts.

Buvette's were heavenly.  They were sliced very thin and tossed with walnuts and cheese.  The taste was so fresh and so light, and we desperately wanted to be able to recreate them at home.  So we asked the server how they were prepared: Brussels sprouts, Pecorino, walnuts, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  That. Is. It.  To quote Ina Garten, "how easy is that?"

So my variation is below.  Make sure to use a very dry, crumbly Pecorino, and you also want to salt liberally.  The key, though?  You need to keep tasting, tasting, tasting to make sure you have the seasoning right.  And don't skimp on the olive oil!

BUVETTE'S BRUSSELS SPROUTS
Serves 4 as a side dish


1 pound Brussels sprouts, sliced thinly
1/2 pound aged Pecorino, grated
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted 
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper


1. Trim off the dry ends of the Brussels sprouts and run them under some water.  The best way to slice them very thin is to use the slicing attachment on a food processor: feed the Brussels sprouts into the processor and they'll be finished in about a minute.  You could use a mandoline, but be careful of those fingers.  And I suppose you could slice them by hand but that'll be a long process.  Once finished, empty Brussels sprouts into a large bowl.


2. Add the grating attachment to your food processor.  Add Pecorino to grate.  Again, you can do this with a hand grater too.  Add cheese to Brussels Sprouts in the bowl.


3. Using a dry pan, toast walnuts over medium heat until fragrant and slightly darker.  Add to bowl.


4. Add olive oil, salt, and pepper to the bowl and toss well to coat.  Taste for seasoning; add more olive oil, salt, and/or pepper, as needed.  Serve.


KID-FRIENDLINESS: Who are we kidding?  Bug would never eat this.


WINE NOTES: Usually, a crisp white is the way to go with Brussels sprouts, but the Pecorino makes them a bit more red wine friendly.  I had the Foris Pinot Noir with this and liked it.  


Eat, drink, and recreate your favorite restaurant dishes.

Figs and Pecorino

New York City is in the middle of an October heat wave that has sucked my will to live: our building had to turn off everyone's air-conditioning a couple weeks ago so we've been melting away in our apartment with 85-degree temps outside.  We'd buy fans...except there's no damn room for them, such is life in a tiny apartment.  All our windows are open...which lets in all the noise and, annoyingly, very little breeze.  Bug can't sleep, we can't sleep. We're all grumpy.  It has not been pretty.

So yesterday I declared that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was turning heat on in this place in order to cook.  Which ended up being untrue, alas.  I found a recipe in Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy for sticky figs and it struck a chord with me.  All it calls for is taking a pint of figs - or however many you have - and halving them.  Then you put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Jamie calls for them to be baked at 120 degrees for two hours but my oven only goes down to 170 degrees.  So I did that for two hours.  Done.  That's it.

I paired the figs with a crumbly, salty Pecorino.  This is one of those cases where you should find the best Pecorino you possibly can since it's one of the stars of the meal.  We added Prosciutto di Parma, rustic Italian bread, and dipping oil (really good-quality oil, sea salt, pepper).

Very little heat, very little fuss.  I know there are some of you who read this who will say, "They had only that for dinner?!"  And the answer is a resounding YES.  It's too damn hot to eat anything else.  Seriously.

Eat, drink, and keep it simple.


UPDATE #1: Naturally, Bug didn't want anything to do with the figs (though we did make her try just one) so she had a sliced apple.  She also wasn't a huge fan of the Pecorino - she thought it was "spicy".  But she ate almost that entire pile of prosciutto - I had to add more to the board - and she had bread with butter slathered on it (she claims, falsely, that she's "allergic" to olive oil).  This is such an easy meal to cater to picky eaters.

UPDATE #2: Foolishly, I forgot to mention what we drank and thanks to my good friend Daphne for reminding me!  Per Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page's What to Drink With What You Eat, I drank a Riesling: Arthur Metz 2010 from Alsace.  It paired very well, but didn't wow me.  Adam had the winner: Brooklyn Brewery's Monster Barleywine.  It was huge in flavor, but didn't overwhelm the cheese or figs.  It was an unexpected, much more interesting pairing than the Riesling.  I highly recommend it.