Manolo’s Food Blog

Now is the time of bounty, the season when little baskets in the market brim sinfully with berries so ripe you cannot in good conscience pass them by. They must be rescued and carried swiftly home to be consumed before sun-up.

From Mexico there are mangoes too broad to hold in one hand and giant red papayas nearly too broad to hold in two. Yellow peaches have arrived from local orchards as have blackberries the size of gumballs. All types of summer squash are perfect.

Amid such abundance, Mr. Henry hesitates to complain. These days, however, bananas, nature’s most perfect food, are rather too small and too ripe. Here is Mrs. Henry’s peerless recipe for banana mini-muffins. They freeze wonderfully.

Cream together 1 stick of butter and 1 cup of sugar.
Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time.
Mix dry ingredients:
1 cup unbleached white flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup wheat bran
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
Mash 3 ripe bananas with 1 teaspoon vanilla.
Add dry ingredients to butter/egg/sugar.
Add mashed bananas.
Add ½ cup plain non-fat yogurt.

Lightly grease mini-muffin pan. (If preparing large muffins you may elect to use silicone cups.) Bake in convection oven at 350 degrees until brown, about 10 minutes.

On the Fourth of July, the corn was not quite knee-high. Tomatoes were good but not magnificent, not yet the stand-alone dish they will become next month. Garden arugula was bright and not too sharp, happily reminiscent of Italian varietials. Peppers and onions came off the grill with flesh still meaty and toothsome.

Still, although Mr. Henry does not like to complain, the tastes of the weekend were beginning to be a bore. Meat grilled outdoors is all very fine but without a skillful marinade lacks both subtlety and complexity.

On a lazy Sunday morning at Paul’s country house, however, Mrs. Henry, ever the clever one when given a moment’s free time, created an appetizer of scallops that was the most exciting new taste of the summer. Completed in five minutes, it was beyond compare.

She brushed the broiling pan with olive oil and arranged a quart of sea scallops across its surface. In three minutes they were nicely browned yet still soft to the touch of a finger. [Don’t let them get rubbery. There is no need to cook them solidly throughout. So long as they are warm inside, you’ve done your job.]

She served them on top of a cool, fresh relish. To a peeled, seeded and diced tomato she added coarsely chopped cilantro leaf, the juice from half a lime, a pinch of salt and — now for the genius — one peeled and diced peach. The flowery aroma of peach married to its tangy tomato cousin created a subtly balanced liqueur, lighter than a wine sauce, which perfectly supported the scallop’s mild sweetness.

Mr. Henry’s favorite fruits are the pulpy, pitted, tree fruits such as plums, apricots, nectarines, and peaches. The Chilean ones in the markets lately, however, although ravishing beautiful, have been rudely tasteless. While the weather this year has been divine, springtime as a rule produces very few fresh fruits or vegetables. California artichokes came and went in a couple of weeks. Like California strawberries, excessive rain ruined their usually intense flavor.

In despair Mr. Henry does what he has done so often in the past: he complains to his friends. A suggestion from Nadia (who is never really wrong) solved the problem in an inspired, old-fashioned way.

Compote: When you have purchased five luscious, black plums and discover they have the internal texture of turnips and a flavor redolent of caterpillars, you feel rather less than hopeful for the future. To save the moment as well as the fruit, pit them and throw them into a casserole with half a cup of fresh orange juice and a tablespoon or two of Demarara cane sugar crystals.

Add a splash of slivovitz or kirsch for a rounded aroma and more smoothly textured liquid. Brandy will intrude a bit on the plum flavor but works nicely if you intend to create a dessert.

Nadia likes to add a stick of cinnamon, but Mr. Henry generally avoids it. Like for cranberries, once the pot has boiled, it is done. After it cools, add a bit of fresh lemon juice to bump up the tartness and preserve the color.

The Czechs eat this as an accompaniment to schnitzel and other fried foods. As both a taste treat and a visual treat, the dark red, aromatic concoction is equally appropriate alongside meat or fish. On top of yogurt it makes a perfect breakfast, too. There is something tantalizingly attractive about that color, something positively medieval.

Spooning it
into his bowl, Mr. Henry is transported and translated to a picnic in Poitiers reclining on the unicorn tapestries.