On a recent jaunt around the blogosphere, I came across some fantastic entries on meyer lemons; such gorgeous photography I could practically smell their sweet perfume.

But it was a post by Sam on Becks and Posh that made it to my dinner table this week, albeit in altered form. You see, Sam had melded two recipes—a makeshift Mediterranean tuna salad with meyer lemon zest  by Allen from Eating Out Loud, and confit tuna on grilled bread by Chris Kronner—into yet another concoction all her own. Tuna and meyer lemon confit with white beans on grilled bread.  

Inspired as I was by the evolutionary element of Sam’s post, I pulled out and defrosted a gorgeous hunk of swordfish that my fish guy had caught one morning in late summer and that I had come home and frozen by early afternoon. Fresh as a daisy, it was.

And then, because Christopher and I had taken Noe shopping at Bottle Barn during the Super Bowl (we were told by the clerk that we were being un-American . . . don’t all families go shopping for wine with their young daughter during the Super Bowl?) and I got to fantasizing over a bottle of Bandol about the South of France, the classic Nicoise dish of Pain Bagnat worked its way into the mix.

With all of these muses in my mind, I pulled out my skillet that evening and caramelized a tangle of thinly sliced onions, stirred in a handful of chopped olives, preserved meyer lemons and meyer lemon zest. Then I whisked together some peppery extra virgin olive oil and a squeeze of meyer lemon with the yolk of one tiny aurucuna egg and added some crushed-to-a-paste garlic, and salt and pepper before tossing half the dressing with a nice mound of greens.

The swordfish was so sublime that I didn’t want to mask its flavor. Ideally, I would have prepared it as Sam did, confited in olive oil. But I was pressed for time so I sprinkled it with Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of piment d’espelette, seared it in a hot pan coated in a shimmer of olive oil, let it rest, and cut it into 1/4–inch slices.

I had a gorgeous whole wheat boule from Bennett Valley Bakery, from which I toasted two long slices and rubbed them with a clove of garlic (I love that trick). Then I drizzled it with the rest of the dressing, spread the onion-garlic-lemon mixture on top, mounded the greens on top of that, and crowned it all with the swordfish slices.

As much as I would have loved to have enjoyed one of the coveted Bandols we bought, we settled for a Philip Staley Viognier which ended up being quite lovely . . . the floral nature of the meyer lemon in particular popped out in the presence of the wine.

We enjoyed our dinner so much, in fact, that it re-ignited my desire to eat more open-faced sandwiches (as we called them when I was a girl). Clotilde, of Chocolate and Zucchini, features one in her cookbook (calling it by its French name, tartine), and Deborah Madison dishes up several in her Vegetarian Suppers.

Here are a few that I have enjoyed throughout the seasons and others that I’ve as yet only imagined (note that all start with a nice trencher of good, rustic bread, toasted or grilled, and rubbed with garlic):

• Kale sauteed with olive oil and garlic topped with either feta or a nutty cheese like gouda and given a quick broil
• A smear of avocado topped with sliced tomato (that’s where this tomato went last summer), a sprinkle of Maldon and a drizzle of really good extra virgin olive oil
• Pea puree topped with leftover shredded beef short ribs
• Smashed white beans topped with hunks of duck confit and bits of fig
• Blue cheese topped with marinated cubes of beets and toasted walnuts
• Drizzled with melted chocolate and topped with really good extra virgin olive oil, meyer lemon zest and Maldon sea salt (you can skip the garlic on this one)

Any other ideas you’d care to share?

PS . . . We’ve had quite a few join the Braisy Chain as of late, so I’ll be doing a roundup post in the next week or so. If you have a post—or are planning to write a post—with a favorite winter braise, consider tagging along on the Braisy Chain! Click on the blue Le Creuset for more info . . .