wedding recipe testing pt. 1
vegetable dishes inspired by renaissance still lifes
hi friends! thank you again for being here :), your friendship and support mean a lot to me.
i’m moving around the order of my substacks a bit because i wanted to get my post featuring three tomato and corn recipes to you asap. this post was supposed to be a “mid-month substack”, which i post monthly but i have yet to standardize a theme or topic. i generally just muse about something in my life that is food-related, so for the next two months, i will be providing a window into the wedding recipe testing i’ve been conducting (which has taken up a lot of my time in the past few weeks). this newsletter focuses on the vegetable recipes i have been developing.
for those who have already read the wedding spiel a half-dozen times, you can skip this part, but for those that haven’t: théo and i got legally married back in june in a civil ceremony in paris with his family. this fall, we are having a larger wedding ceremony with my family and our friends. i am developing the menu for the dinner, doing all the prep that can be done in advance, and making the dessert. on the day before and the day of the wedding, i’ll be working with some chef friends who will do the final execution of the dishes.
on the day théo proposed to me, we went to the prado museum and i took so many photos of the northern renaissance still life paintings. i not only loved the look of the dishes but the way the tables were set up. so, the food for our wedding is heavily inspired by those tablescapes.
some of the photos above are from that day, others are from other museums
i noticed a few recurring themes in the paintings:
bowls of fruit, and piles of cheeses and olives
meats and shellfish
lots of raw vegetables
savory pies
there is not much to prepare for on the first point. sure, it is no easy task to get a fruit bowl looking *just so*, but aside from studying the paintings, and seeing how the fruit is sliced and arranged, there is not much to be done as of right now. as for the meat, i’ve outsourced the job to my favorite local butcher in beacon, new york, barb. i’ll discuss those two dishes at another time, maybe after the wedding.
the other dishes each presented their own challenges though. in the next newsletter, i’ll be talking about pies, but in this newsletter i’ll focus on raw veg.
i was concerned about the veg from the get-go. if i were to recreate these paintings at face value, i would be serving raw bunches of asparagus or whole fennels, which i cannot do.
so, the task was to create vegetable dishes that looked as close as possible to the veg in their raw/untreated states. this meant i had to pick vegetables that didn’t lose their shape/color after being cooked or dressed (sorry eggplant, i wanted to include you). then i needed to consider how said vegetables could have flavoring added eg. with a sauce that won’t cover up or alter the way the veg looks on the outside. the dish also needs to be taken off of a platter easily (which means all sauces need to be on/in the vegetables, not at the bottom of the platter as it would be too slow and difficult for guests to take a piece of vegetable and scoop a sauce onto their plate). finally, each dish needs to be a good portion size.
the first idea that came to mind was vegetable farcis. vegetable farcis are a dish where vegetables are hollowed out, stuffed, and cooked. originally i was thinking of cooking the classics, peppers and tomatoes, but upon further thought, i got concerned about using these veg. they both can overcook quite quickly, wrinkling and becoming mushy. this would make it hard to keep them looking fresh, and they would get even more cooked and mushy in a food warmer (and thus impossible to plate on a platter right before service). it could also be difficult to transfer peppers or tomatoes from the platter to the plate without them dropping and ruining someone's outfit. so these veg were out, and after some thinking, summer squashes and onions felt like safer bets. they won’t wrinkle, or change color, and they remain sturdy even with extended cooking times.
truthfully, i forget exactly what i had initially been thinking of putting in the farcis (all i can remember is a grain base), but the final result was far different than that initial thought.
one thing that was important to me was being able to reuse the veg that was removed from the center of the farcis in the other dishes i am creating. I also wanted to make dishes that all guests in attendance could eat – something gluten-free and vegan (and sans mushrooms).
squash farci
when thinking about squash, a ratatouille dish came to mind quickly. ratatouille is one of my favorite dishes in the late summer/early fall. it’s a delicious way of preparing late summer produce for those cooler evenings in a stew of eggplant, summer squash, tomatoes, peppers, and onions (plus some herbs and garlic). i know it doesn’t sound like much, but it is so homey and warm and delicious and flavorful and it is great served in an omelet, on pasta or polenta, or just as a side on its own. it only felt right to stuff the squash with ratatouille, and i got even more excited about it when i realized that the outer part of the squash would hold its texture/bite. my only gripe with ratatouille is that the squash inevitably gets soft by the end of the long cook (while i prefer for my eggplant to be falling apart tender, i like for my squash to have some body).
i chose 8-ball squash to make this dish for a few reasons: 1. they are the same shape (and general size) as an onion, and 2. the outside of the squash stays and sturdy even when cooked.
to make the dish, i sliced the squash just below the stem, and then i hollowed out the inside with a melon baller and put the insides into a bowl. i placed the hollowed-out squashes on a tray and set those aside. the hollowed-out insides were used to make the ratatouille filling. i cooked them down to reduce the moisture and get that yummy, caramelized squash flavor in the dish. i then proceeded with making the ratatouille as usual, waited for it to cool, and then filled the hollow squashes with it. these were then cooked at 400 degrees until the filling was bubbling and the squash was slightly soft. it was delicious, and i love the texture variance provided by the less-cooked squash on the outside. this was the only dish for the wedding that required one test, it was perfect as is.
onion farci
for the onion farci, i went with a butter bean filling. the idea for a bean filling came about when i realized that the vegan guests needed some more protein on their menu. i also wanted those who were gluten-free to be able to eat more carbs than just the potato salad (which is discussed below).
i chose butter beans for their tender texture, plus i thought the large bean was fun. i rehydrated the beans overnight, boiled them in fresh water until tender, and then drained them. while the beans boiled, i roasted the onions in salt to intensify the flavor and keep the outer skin nice and dry and sturdy, while the insides got creamy and sweet. once the onions were out of the oven and cooled, the salt was rinsed off (and used to roast the turnips, more on that further down), the top was sliced off, and the inside was removed (if you roast them for long enough it comes out easily). a third of the insides were immediately diced up and thrown into a pan along with some oregano in a bouquet garni (the rest of the onion was used for the ratatouille above and the roasted turnips below).
once the onions took on some color, a crushed and diced arbol chile, fennel seeds, urfa chile, paprika, salt, and bay leaves were added to the pan to quickly toast in the oil. that was then followed by tomato paste. it cooked for a minute and then i added some roasted and sliced jimmy nardello peppers, the zest and juice of a lemon, some sliced garlic cloves, a little bit of diced preserved lemons, and some diced (salted) capers. this was shortly followed by some white wine and the cooked beans. the whole pot got a lid placed on top and was transferred to the oven for 20 minutes to infuse. the filling cooled down before being stuffed into the onions, which were then packaged up and stored in the fridge for a day (this allowed all the flavors to marinate + allows them to be prepared the day before), before being thrown in the oven and roasted at 400f until hot.
these were super punchy and flavorful, and the beans were nice and tender. we have a winner!
roasted turnips
the turnips threw me for a loop since i don’t eat them very often, and cook them even less often. but they are root vegetables like beets, and one of my favorite ways to roast beets is in salt. i re-used the salt from the onions to roast the turnips until soft when pierced with a knife. i gave it a taste, and they were super juicy and tender, with a bit of a spicy kick, and an earthy, nutty sweetness at the finish. i thought it would be fun to glaze them in a brown butter honey mixture to bring out more of those sweet and nutty notes. upon trying this it was a tad too rich for me and i felt like it was missing something, so i blended the browned honey butter with the leftover onion centers from the farcis, which added a nice richness to the whole dish. done!
glazed carrots
carrots were an obvious choice with all the constraints in mind. i also love roasted carrots, and don’t think I’m alone here. because the chefs will be doing a lot of volume and having to prepare a lot of different things, as much hands-off cooking/prior cooking is best. sous vide-ing felt like the best method for being able to make a carrot that was tender both inside and out, that could be prepared the day prior, and then seared the day of. luckily serious eats had just the recipe. the only switch we made was to use vegan butter so that all the guests would be able to enjoy these carrots.
tomato salad
i am biased here – tomatoes are one of my top 3 favorite veg (and if you put them in the fruit category where they belong, they’re in my top 5). in the summer i eat heirlooms out of hand, like peaches or apples. truthfully, i don’t think they need anything, but most people do prefer them with a little more pizzazz.
i could do a lot, but i don’t think i’m alone here in preferring them with simple preparation. i brushed on a minimal dressing of balsamic whisked with even less than a little honey, and a pinch of salt to help emphasize all those tomato-ey flavors. to turn it up just a tad more i added some chiffonaded mint and basil between slices to add a little contrast and brightness.
as i already noted above, it is important to me to keep the vegetable looking like the vegetable. so i wanted to slice it in a way where it still looked like a whole tomato. i’m curious to hear your thoughts on this one, as i’m not sure if it is too simple because i absolutely loved it.
potato salad
there will be a potato gratin pie at the wedding, but this dish has both dairy and gluten, and i wanted everyone to have a potato option if they should desire to eat potatoes. so, a vegan vinegary potato salad it was (i love to eat potatoes in a vinegary salad so i will be happy to have this option at dinner). my favorite way to cook baby potatoes is to steam them. sometimes i do this on the stove, but with the quantity in mind, the oven made the most sense. to steam the potatoes put some water in a sheet pan, place a wire cooling rack on top, and place the scrubbed baby potatoes on that. cover the whole thing with foil and roast. begin checking at 45 minutes. you want the potatoes quite cooked and creamy (which will contrast nicely with the vinaigrette). for the vinaigrette, i went the route of classic french potato salad with salty capers, cornichons, mustard, garlic, shallot, and champagne vinegar. i blended all of this together and strained it, and then whisked in olive oil. slightly warm potatoes were added to the dressing and then this all marinated in the fridge overnight to intensify. the whole thing was served up with dill flowers, which i’ll hopefully be able to find the week of the wedding so we can plate it the same way.
green bean salad
the green bean salad concept was pretty similar to the potato salad concept: cook green beans (cook trimmed green beans in boiling water for 4 minutes, then remove and dunk them into an ice bath) and make a dressing. the dressing was made in the blender with lots of roasted garlic, champagne vinegar, sherry vinegar, a little mustard, and a little sugar. then it was strained and i whisked in basil oil and olive oil. the whole salad needs to be tossed and plated right before eating for the freshest taste, and i’ll be adding in little tarragon leaves for some herby brightness.
salad salad
amidst all these other vegetable ‘salads’ i knew we needed a “salad salad” aka one with leafy greens. i originally was doing a wedding without flowers, but i then decided to have some flower girls, and as i was looking at my inspo paintings i noticed they had lots of vases of flowers. i also decided that the cake would have flowers, and then, while researching what kinds of salads people ate in europe in the 15th c., i learned that many of them featured flowers.
i was not looking forward to adding flowers to a salad: how on earth could i keep this looking like raw veg in its unaltered form when there are flowers? but then, at the market, i was looking at gem lettuce and when the leaves are opened up a bit, they look like a rose. so a salad with roses it was. which i knew paired well with lemon and pistachio. this was easy, i would make the dressing for one of my favorite salads – the pistachio and gem lettuce salad at wildair restaurant, but skip the herbs in their version and instead add in some rose water and a tiny bit of tarragon, basil, and some peas to balance the whole thing out.
the gems were quartered, rinsed, and dried, and then the dressing was piped in between the leaves and on the quarters so they could be squeezed back together. each gem lettuce will be plated with roses in between each gem to add the florals to the salad as decoration (i will be using organic roses for the big day).
This is all so beautiful.
I did something similar at my wedding and made the centerpiece a still life replica. This is such a beautiful way to bring elegance and regal energy to your beautiful day.