Starting Early, and Working in Batches

The heatwave that passed through the Southland has mostly broken, but I've been keen to find ways to do nice cooking without using the oven. This may seem like an obvious thing to do, but one our main methods of roasting meat and vegetables is by starting them in hot oil over the range-top and then sliding them into a super hot oven. That's how you get sexy grub.

But recently this has been hard, so I started early, and resigned us to eat some of the food chilled.

I started some beats in the oven, roasting them for later use (like the next day). That took nearly an hour in the oven. I used my four quart sauce-pan, put he trimmed beats inside, tossed them with olive oil, salted and peppered them, and put a half-inch of water in the bottom. I put the whole thing, covered, into the oven, and checked it later. You can smell when they're mostly done. I took them out, set them on the counter to cool, and put a that night's starch into the exact same sauce-pan, added some salt and pepper, and returned it to the oven.

They were cute little sweet potatoes. Both the sweet potatoes and beets, and the following zucchini and carrot are all from our organic CSA, so we knew we were getting good, healthy food.

Once the beets were cool enough to handle (see: still pretty hot) I peeled them with a towel, as is the best way dealing with beets. They're beautiful beets: a pink one, a pink and white one, and a large white one.

Once the sweet potatoes finished, I did the same thing: setting them to cool, now I turned off the oven, waiting a few minutes, then peeling them. Starch was done. I put them into the fridge to chill.

Next I worked on the vegetables. I waited until I knew the missus was heading home, then got a frying pan nice and hot with some olive oil. In a mixing bowl I had my zucchini and carrot and some roughly chopped garlic. I tossed this to evenly mix the vegetables. Once the oil was very hot, I put in the first batch of vegetables. What you're looking for is for the vegetables to be in a a single layer, and not too crowded.

Why? If it's too crowded or densely loaded, you'll end up steaming the vegetables instead of getting some nice color and flavor on them. You're trying to keep the mush-level as low as possible.

With the burner on high, the first batch will will get color before they're done. That's what you want. They should still be kinda hard. Remove them and put them on a plate to rest. They'll continue cooking for a time as you do the next batch. Just add a touch more oil and some more vegetables. Keep this up until you have no vegetables left.

On the last batch, as it's getting color, return the rest of the resting vegetables and toss the set vigorously. After a minute or two, return them to the resting plate, and reserve to serve. They're done and not mushy.

Here's a picture of the batching. Notice the vegetable resting on the counter in the background.

For the protein, I had, after buying whole chickens and carving them appropriately, a bunch of chicken wings left over. I had them marinating overnight, and then roasted them in the oven, the second time I had it turned on during the day, but since they were so far apart, it didn't turn the apartment into a sauna.

Here's a picture of the plate, with the vegetables, the wings, and the coolly smashed and seasoned sweet potatoes: