Griddled Cheese, Fresh Herbs, Herb Oil and Harissa

Adam Fuss’ Grilled Paneer Salad

NOTES

If you can’t find paneer, a fresh pressed Indian cheese, sub haloumi, a Greek cheese similar in texture. Neither of these cheeses will melt on the grill, but instead, they maintain their shape while browning on the surface. The main difference is that paneer is a high-acid cheese and halloumi is distinctly low in acidity; turns out, both high and low acid levels prevent melting. Cool, right?

Note: The recipe for the herb oil makes way more than you need for this dish, but it’s the perfect thing to keep in the fridge and use for salads, grains or pastas. You will need cheesecloth or a nutmilk bag to strain the oil.

INSTRUCTIONS

To make your herb oil, add your fresh herbs to a high-powered blender with 1 cup of olive oil . Purée completely, adding your grapeseed oil in a slow stream. Line a fine mesh sieve with a layer or two of cheesecloth and pour the oil through, stirring with a spoon to extract the bright green oil, leaving the herb pulp behind. If you are like me and make nut milk at home, you can also use your synthetic nutmilk bag for this skipping the sieve all together.

Heat a well-oiled grill-pan on medium heat. If you are using a coal bbq, wait until the heat dies down so as not to char the cheese too quickly. Slice your cheese into 1″ thick rectangular slices and brush the outside with olive oil, season lightly with salt and cracked black pepper. When the grill pan is hot, toss your cheese on there, allowing it to cook for approximately 2-3 minutes on each side. Flip once.

Grab a handful of herbs, tear into bite sized pieces and toss on individual plates, or a shallow serving platter. Place your cheese alongside the herbs and a dollop of harissa. Drizzle with your herb oil, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and serve.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

EASY

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SERVES

3

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PREP TIME

15 MINS

Herb Oil

  • 2  
    cups 
    fresh basil leaves
  • cups 
    grapeseed oil
  • cup  
    extra virgin olive oil

Griddled Cheese

  • 12  
    ounces 
    paneer or haloumi
  • cup 
    mixed fresh herbs (mint, flat leaf parsely, basil, chives)
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    olive oil
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    sea salt + black pepper
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    dollop of harissa (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS

To make your herb oil, add your fresh herbs to a high-powered blender with 1 cup of olive oil . Purée completely, adding your grapeseed oil in a slow stream. Line a fine mesh sieve with a layer or two of cheesecloth and pour the oil through, stirring with a spoon to extract the bright green oil, leaving the herb pulp behind. If you are like me and make nut milk at home, you can also use your synthetic nutmilk bag for this skipping the sieve all together.

Heat a well-oiled grill-pan on medium heat. If you are using a coal bbq, wait until the heat dies down so as not to char the cheese too quickly. Slice your cheese into 1″ thick rectangular slices and brush the outside with olive oil, season lightly with salt and cracked black pepper. When the grill pan is hot, toss your cheese on there, allowing it to cook for approximately 2-3 minutes on each side. Flip once.

Grab a handful of herbs, tear into bite sized pieces and toss on individual plates, or a shallow serving platter. Place your cheese alongside the herbs and a dollop of harissa. Drizzle with your herb oil, sprinkle with sea salt and pepper and serve.

It is rewarding to connect with great artists whose work you have long admired, but for me, it is even more satisfying to discover that those great artists share my love of food and plant life. I met photographer Adam Fuss at a rather wonderful dinner, thrown by my friend Victoria Cherry. The food was classic and very French, but each dish inspired by a work of art recently acquired by the Memorial Gallery in Rochester, NY. The last straggling dinner guests ended up in the kitchen, pilfering grapefruit sized peonies from the  dramatic flower arrangements, an ideal party favor if you ask me.

Adam and I rode the train home that evening peonies in hand; we talked about strange vegetables, mushroom hunting and lord knows what else, ending the commute with a plan to make salad. I was sure Adam had no clue what to expect from my proposal, but he acquiesced, and invited me to his secluded East Village terrace garden, where he grows lemon cucumbers, perfect cherry tomatoes, and all the herbs he used to make his dish. For an artist who is notoriously shrouded when it comes to sharing studio techniques, Adam is an open book in the kitchen and the garden.

Please check out his solo show at Cheim and Read, which is up now and closes on October 17th.

* thank you Alexxa Gotthardt for the stolen peony picture.

Adam Fuss In His Own Words

Julia Sherman: We met at a very unusual dinner party on the Upper East Side and I am not sure you understood at all what I meant when I told you, “I have a salad blog.” What did you think you were getting into when you agreed to participate?

AF: The particulars didn’t matter. I like to not know.

JS: You have made your career as a photographer who doesn’t use a camera. This of course inspires questions about technique and process. Why does it bother you so much when people want to know how you make your images? Is the mystery of the process inherent to the work?

AF: I do use cameras, but there are so many schmucks out there who know more about my own camera than I do, and thus they assume their are better photographers than I. There’s nothing I hate more than talking tech (except when it comes to the garden, I guess).

With the photographic image there seems to be a automatic need for technical information, as if this would help to explain something that is not yet understood. This is where the wires get crossed big time — what is not understood is within the realm of image and visual language. No amount of technical or scientific data will answer these questions, because the real question is not asked or perhaps even imagined; a technical exchange leaves the asker none-the-wiser. I think the prevailing belief that science can answer questions of meaning is one of our prevailing cultural blind spots.

JS: Many moons ago, you worked as a waiter at the Metropolitan Museum’s café. For a young artist, do you think it is better or worse to have a day job within the art world/institution? At that point, did you ever imagine that museum would someday acquire your work?

AF: I never imagined I would have my works at the Met. But, working around so many works, especially ancient ones is a far cry from say, working at an art fair, but I don’t think having just any art world job would have been positive. Perhaps it’s better to be far away from the “business” lest it cloud one’s direction…

JS: You have always made images embedded with highly spiritual iconography — snakes, water, babies, smoke, light. Did having Honey, your daughter, change your practice?

AF: No, she didn’t. I did give her more of my time and that has reduced my studio time, which is ok!

JS: Well, I guess I wonder how that kind of life-changing experience affects someone who is already consumed with existential thought on a day-to-day basis?

AF: I don’t really see how Honey, or being a parent in general, has affected my work. It seems that my work is more about what I don’t have. I know… that sounds unhealthy.

JS: What is your relationship to your plants? What was the name of the ones that look like an elephant feet sprouting a vine? Do you think your love of plants has some relationship to the fact that you have an art practice centered around light?

AF: I think my relationship to my plants is deeper and more intimate than I know. But, since I saw you for our salad, I am just now getting a sense of that. Plants are our source of life and hope. I have a feeling my work will move towards them in the future.

JS: You seem to really enjoy cooking. Do you feel like an artist when you cook? Or better, question, do you always feel like an artist or are you something “off duty?”

AF: I am mostly off duty, I am sad to say, but being “on”, even if it is just 1% of the time, is something valuable.