Thursday, July 24, 2008

Wild Mushrooms & Potato Gnocchi


My son, Asa, was home last week for a few days and, while walking his dog in the woods behind our house, he came upon some little treasurers, wild mushrooms. Over the years we have studied up on local wild mushrooms and have discovered at least three different kinds that we forage for and eat. The Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich had a mycology course on locally available mushrooms a few years ago which I did not attend, and I have watched to see if they would repeat it, but alas, not to date, to my knowledge. I’d jump at a chance to go out with an expert.

When I was growing up in the 1960s, I knew a local Italian family that gathered mushrooms, although only one kind, I think, and after slicing them lengthwise, dried them in the sun on screens for use in the winter. This was my first introduction to locally available wild mushrooms.

Of course, we all know that some mushrooms are poisonous and can either make you ill or even kill you, but there are lot of them that are called inedible, which more often then not means they don’t taste good, not that they are necessarily poisonous. If you want to forage for mushrooms, you have to be very careful and have a good knowledge of what you are doing. It’s good to know someone who has some experience before plunging in on your own.

We have three or four books on the subject of mushrooms, including the Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Mushrooms, and my favorite, The Complete Mushroom Book, The quiet hunt by Antonio Carluccio. Our friend Joann from Barnet introduced us to the “field mushroom,” agaricus campestris, while we were doing tai chi on the Memorial Field in Bradford one day a few years ago. It had rained the night before, and by late morning these mushrooms spotted the eastern side of Memorial Field in clusters. We picked about a dozen and eagerly took them home to cook.

Walking in our neighborhood, we have come upon the distinctive black morel, morchella elata, with its pock marked cap and sponge-like appearance, growing in sandy soil. These are quickly gathered (we can’t believe our lucky stars) and sped home for a quick snack. I usually just sauté them quickly in olive oil, with a single minced clove of garlic, perhaps a snippet of fresh thyme and/or parsley, and a grinding of salt and pepper. Serve on bruschetta, toasted baguette rubbed with garlic and brushed with extra-virgin olive oil, or toss with some pasta. Yummy!

What Asa found, however, was the beautiful chanterelle, Latin name cantharellus cibarius. This mycorrhizal fungus, meaning it forms symbiotic relationships with other plants, is nearly impossible to cultivate, but is relatively common hereabouts in the wild. While caution is always the by word, this golden colored, gracefully funnel-shaped mushroom smells mildly of apricot and is easily recognizable. The gills on the underside have irregular veins running from the bottom of the cap to almost the base of the stem. The flesh is firm and meaty, and it has a light peppery taste. In France they are known as girolles.

After bringing them home, he carefully cleaned the dirt off with a brush. Some say you can wash mushrooms without their absorbing any water, but we prefer to just clean them with a soft vegetable brush before we slice them up.

Asa loves to make gnocchi, the little dumplings made with potato and flour, in his recipe, but, in mine, an egg is included. So he decided to pair his chanterelles with potato gnocchi and some gratings of cheese. Good idea, I thought.

Gnocchi are made from a variety of different ingredients including potato, semolina, ordinary wheat flour and bread crumbs. Once made, some varieties are rolled into a distinctive shape on the back of the tines of a fork with ridges on one side and a depression on the other so the sauce has somewhere to adhere. Some Roman-style gnocchi are made with semolina flour cooked like polenta in water, cooled and cut out into circles or disks before being sauced and often baked in the oven. Asa makes potato gnocchi and boils them in a large pot of water until they bob to the top. He removes them with a skimmer and, if not being served right away, he places them in cold water to arrest the cooking. In a few minutes, he drains them on paper towels, and in an hour or so, places them in freezer bags and puts into the icebox. Next time he’s home, he just boils them a few minutes to thaw out, and sauces them for a quick snack.

Potato Gnocchi with Chanterelles (or mushroom of your choice). Serves 4

For the gnocchi:

2 ea. Russet potato, or other baking, mealy potato
1 cup +/- All purpose flour
¾ tsp. Salt
½ tsp. White pepper, freshly ground
Pinch Nutmeg, freshly grated
1 ea. Egg, large

Boil the potatoes in their skins in plenty of water, salted, until they are done, but before their skins break open. Remove from the water and let cool until you can handle them, or put on gloves to peel them sooner. Remove the skins and put the potatoes through a ricer, spreading the fluffy potatoes over a sheet pan and allowing them to cool completely.

Beat the egg with the seasonings in a small bowl, gather the cold potatoes into a mound with a well in the center. Mix the egg into the potatoes and start incorporating the flour until you have a smooth, but slightly sticky, dough. Don’t overwork it or the gnocchi will be heavy, not light and airy. Flour the work surface, and divide the dough into manageable pieces, about 2 or 3. Roll out each piece of dough using a smooth back and forth motion until you have a snake about 3/4’ in diameter. Use your dough scraper to cut the rope of dough into ½” pieces. Sprinkle with flour and roll each piece quickly into a small round. To make the ridges, each piece will be rolled across the back of the tines of a fork, pressing them with the tip of the thumb, which makes a dimple on the gnocchi’s backside. Place on a floured surface while the water is coming to a boil.

1 ½ cups Chanterelles, or any other mushroom including cremini,
button, portabella, shitake, etc., sliced
1 ea. Onion, chopped fine
2 tbl. Olive oil
2 ea. Garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. Cinnamon (or not)
3 tbl. Flat leaf parsley, minced
1 tbl. Fresh minced thyme
Freshly grated salt and pepper
1 cup Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese, grated

Heat the olive oil in a skillet sufficiently large to be able to accommodate all the mushrooms in a single layer. Add the onions when the oil is hot, and sauté over medium heat until soft and just starting to color, about 8 to 10 minutes. Add the mushrooms and raise the heat to medium high, tossing the mushrooms, coating with the oil. Saute them until they release their liquid, stirring or tossing occasionally. In about 5 minutes, add the thyme and a sprinkling of cinnamon, and swirl to combine. Cook a minute or so more and add the parsley, salt and pepper.

Put the gnocchi in the boiling water and cook for a moment when they come to the surface. Be careful not to let the water come to a violent boil or your gnocchi will suffer. Drain with a skimmer and place in the skillet with the mushrooms. Toss lightly, sprinkle in the grated cheese, and serve warm.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Cookware




At the request of a reader, this week’s column will deal with cookware and the advantages and disadvantages of certain materials from which cookware is constructed.

Cookware must have two basic elements to recommend itself for our use; it must be a good conductor of heat and its surface must be inert or non-reactive with the foods cooked in it. Keeping these facts in mind, let’s look at the options available to us.

Glass, ceramic, stoneware and earthenware are similar in that they are “varying mixtures of a number of compounds, notably the oxides of silicon, aluminum and magnesium,” as Harold McGee points out in his classic, On Food and Cooking, The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. While these materials don’t conduct heat well and are unsuitable for use over direct heat, they do have advantages of being non-reactive with foods, they don’t corrode and they don’t change the taste of foods cooked in them. I have a number of French and Italian ceramic casseroles and bean pots, which I use, mostly in the oven, as they are fine for slow, even cooking like braising or roasting. Used on top of the stove over direct heat, you risk ceramic pieces shattering, although the use of a flame tamer to diffuse the direct heat can allow use outside the oven.

The best conductors of heat are copper and aluminum. I love my copper cookware and over the years I have collected quite a bit of it from saucepans to stockpots to roasting pans. I started buying cooper cookware, primarily from Bridge Kitchenware in New York city (www.bridgekitchenware.com) back in the early 1970s. Fred Bridge was a character in his own right (I’ve seen his toss elegant Park Avenue ladies, looking for marrow spoons, out of his store while bending over backwards to help Latino boys in chef’s pants who had been sent by their kitchens to pick up a fish poacher.) I was influenced to seek out copper by comments in Julia Child’s classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and photos of lovely copper pots brimming with soup that appeared in the first real cooking magazine, Gourmet.

Copper cookware has the benefit of almost instant heat conduction as it both heats up and cools down quickly. It must be thick and heavy; a minimum of 1/8th inch of solid copper. Those Revere Ware pots with a copper wash on the bottom are useless, the copper being merely a decorative piece that provides no benefit, and they are a pain to keep bright and shiny. Copper’s biggest drawback (besides the fact that it is prohibitively expensive in this new commodities driven world where copper has tripled or more in price) is the fact that it needs to be lined with tin or stainless steel to prevent reactions with the food placed in it. This tin surface can be easily scratched, revealing the solid copper beneath it, if a whisk or metal spoon is used in it. Once the tin lining is damaged, it must be repaired, and tinsmiths doing this type of work are hard to find. However, if copper cookware is used correctly, it will last a lifetime, and beyond, and it is beautiful to look at and speaks to the enthusiasm of the cook who has acquired such treasures.

Aluminum cookware, despite current concerns about the potential for carcinogenic reactions to long term use of aluminum in cooking, is the second best conductor of heat, and it has the benefits of being relatively affordable and light weight. The biggest downside for unlined aluminum in cooking is that is will react with certain foods, causing a discoloration and unappetizing appearance. Many aluminum pots today are coated with a non-stick surface or are anodized, where a thick, non-reactive surface is produced. All Clad is perhaps the best known name in aluminum cookware, although every celebrity chef today has his or her own line of cookware, much of it aluminum based.

Ubiquitous in country cooking is our cast iron cookware, of which Lodge is the last great American manufacturer. Heavy, impervious to damage, and relatively inexpensive, cast iron’s biggest disadvantage is that it can corrode and rust if not taken care of properly. It comes in about third behind copper and aluminum as a conductor, and we all know that when it’s hot, it stays hot. It also can react with some foods, but a well-seasoned cast iron skillet is almost non-stick and foods don’t tend to cook on. Seasoning a cast iron pan involves heating it slowly in the oven with a coating of oil for several hours. The oil penetrates the small crevices and scratches in the pan, forming a flat, hard surface that resists water and air. After use, the cast iron pan should be washed with mild dish soap or just rubbed out with a paper towel and/or coarse salt, used as an abrasive, if it needs some scouring. Avoid steel wool or detergents, or you may have to re-season the pot. When I wash my cast iron, I dry it by placing it over the burner on my range until all the moisture has evaporated. There’s nothing like cast iron for frying chicken or bacon, or making cornbread, although many people use it for their everyday cooking.

Cast iron also comes enameled, like Le Creusett or Staub, both French manufacturers, which is both attractive and functional. Perfect for a slow braise in the fall, they can also be used on the stovetop and because of the enameling, they are easy to maintain and clean. They don’t require seasoning and will last forever, if not chipped or damaged by abuse.

Lastly, there is stainless steel cookware. As stainless steel is not a good conductor of heat, most stainless steel pots and pans have a thick disc of copper sandwiched between two layers of stainless on their bottom to increase their conductivity. Stainless steel does not react with foods cooked in it and it is easy to take care of, so it is becoming more widely used. I cook mostly in stainless steel today, using Sitram, a French made product, although in Italy Paderno is a big manufacturer. Stainless steel has the advantage is easy maintenance with acceptable heat conduction, if it has a copper disk on the bottom, but it is relatively expensive for a quality product.

Whatever cookware you use, it is best to allow it to preheat, in most cases, before you put any oil or lubricant in it. Any pan’s surface has those myriad scratches and crevices that aren’t visible to the naked eye, but are there nonetheless. When the pan’s surface gets hot and the oil is added, the oil tends to fill these abrasions and shimmer over the surface of the pan, preventing the food to be cooked from sticking to the cooking surface.

Happy cooking, and see you next week.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Baby Zucchini & Zucchini Flowers



I hardly know a backyard gardener that doesn’t grow the summer squashes; zucchini and/or yellow crooked neck squash. Many also grow winter squash like Hubbard, acorn, butternut or buttercup, as well a pumpkin. I’ll write about winter squash when we get to the fall season, but the winter squash in your garden have application in the subject of this article, also. Today we’re talking about the delights of preparing squash flowers for your supper table or as an appetizer. I don’t know how many locals indulge in eating squash flowers, so this may be new to many of you, but it’s not a subject to be dismissed lightly as it’s a unique food, readily available, and not only fun to prepare, but delicious to eat.

Squash flowers are available in farmers’ markets in the area and have started to appear in recent weeks. A few years ago they were a complete novelty, but more and more people are buying them today, so more and more vegetable growers are finding there’s extra income on their squash vines. If you have any of the summer or winter squashes mentioned above, you have the makings of a unique meal or appetizer growing in your yard.

Now at our house, we pick our zucchini in their infancy. I mean very small, usually with the flower still attached, and, therefore, very often. We all know what happens when you neglect your zucchini plant for a few days: gigantic zucchini zonkers sprout and you have a new whiffle-ball bat. These massive squash can be made into zucchini bread, perhaps, but most end up in the compost heap once the kids get done having fun with them.

Zucchini, also known as courgettes, are referred to as vegetables, but are actually the immature fruit of the plant, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower. If you look at your plants closely, you will note that there are two flowers on your plants. The one on a long stem alone is the male flower. These male flowers are the ones most often picked for blossom dishes, however, if you pick your zucchini small enough, you can also include baby zucchini with the flowers attached, as I did recently.

The flowers open during the evening hours to catch the dew that falls, so it is best to harvest them relatively early in the morning. Later in the day, the flowers close up (watch out that you don’t bring one in with a bee enclosed), and as they are so delicate, they are harder to handle if you intend to stuff them. If you are just frying them in a light tempura batter, the closed flowers are OK to use.

Zucchini flowers (including yellow crooked neck flowers, both male and female, as well as male flowers from all the winter squashes) are very perishable and should be used the same day they are harvested. They won’t last long, even refrigerated, so plan on cooking them separately, or including them in a frittata, or risotto, or as a garnish for a light summer soup. They have a very delicate, almost ethereal taste, so it’s easy to overpower them if you’re not careful. I once stuffed them with fresh mozzarella and anchovy, before roasting, but felt the anchovy was too strong for this application. In many areas of Italy, where they are common in the weekly marketplace, they are stuffed with all sorts of things, from prosciutto to potatoes to greens, often with cheese.

We usually eat them deep-fried in a light batter of flour, egg and salt. Deep-frying is somewhat of an art unto it self, so let’s just cover some of the basics for those that need a review. First, make sure all the ingredients are dry, as moisture and hot fat don’t mix. Splattering will occur, so be sure you use a sufficiently large pot to hold the oil to prevent injury or, heaven forbid, fire. Use fresh oil and plenty of it. Peanut oil has the highest smoke point, but regular vegetable oil is fine as we’re talking 360-375 degrees as the optimal frying temperature. Use a deep fry thermometer to monitor the oil’s temperature as oil that is too cold will result in soggy, oil laden food, and too hot will burn the food or overcook the outside while leaving the center undercooked. Don’t overcrowd the pan or the oil’s temperature will be reduced when food is added and the results will be oil saturated and unsatisfactory. When using a batter, dip the food to be prepared in the batter at the last moment, allowing any excess to fall away before carefully placing the food in the hot oil. Lay the food into the oil gently so as not to splash any on yourself. Or use a fry basket if you have one. Remove the cooked food with a spider or slotted spoon, allowing the excess oil to fall away before placing on absorbent paper towels to drain. Salt the food while it is still warm, and serve immediately.

For four people as a summer appetizer here’s a recipe for Fritto Fiori di Zucca, Deep-fried Zucchini Flowers (you can also include the baby females with the little zucchini attached, if you have them):

¼ cup (60 ml) Water
¼ cup (60 ml) Beer, at room temperature
½ cup (70 g) Wondra flour, or other superfine flour
3 ea. Egg whites

Make a batter in a medium-sized bowl by whisking together the water and beer, slowly adding the flour and whisking until smooth. It will be fairly thick, so set it aside for an hour to allow the flour granules to become fully hydrated. After an hour, and just before you are prepared to batter the flowers and cook them, whisk the egg whites until stiff, but not dry, and using a spatula, fold the egg whites into the beer batter.

2 qts. Vegetable, peanut, safflower, canola or other oil
24 ea. Very fresh zucchini blossoms
Fine sea salt, to taste

Pour the oil into a wide 6 quart saucepan, or use a deep fryer if you have one. The oil should be at least 2” deep. Use a deep-fry thermometer and preheat the oil to 375 degrees (190 C).

When the oil is hot, gently dredge the zucchini flowers in the batter, rolling them around to evenly coat them, and allowing any excess to drip back into the bowl. Carefully place the battered flowers into the oil, a few at a time, being careful not to overcrowd the pan. Fry about 2 minutes total, turning the flowers over after a minute so all sides are golden brown. Remove with a wire skimmer, drain on paper towels, sprinkle with sea salt and serve hot.

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do

Chickens

If you are on the local food beat, you can now purchase native, grass fed, organic chickens from area farmers. I get mine from Ray Williams of Back Beyond Farm in Tunbridge, but there are many others who also raise meat birds, so check out your farmers’ markets to find sources.

We haven’t had a supermarket chicken at our house for quite a while. The last one was produced by Vermont’s own naturally-raised chicken company, Misty Knolls Farm over in New Haven, Vermont. Misty Knolls isn’t certified as “organic” and doesn’t raise their chickens on pasture, but they do raise them in a low stress environment without antibiotics or hormones. These are referred to today as “natural” chicken.

The birds I get from Ray are pasture raised, organic chickens. His birds are raised outdoors on grass in specially constructed portable cages. Chickens like to hunt and peck, scratching up grubs and bugs of all sort. They’ll eat young grasses, but have to be moved daily or their droppings, which are rich in nitrogen, will burn the grasses and their pecking will destroy the grasses’ root system. This daily moving of their pens, where they may only be on a single patch of pasture once or twice during their lives, allows the soil to benefit from their manure, but also the grasses to grow back again during the time that chickens are on fresh ground.

If you read Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma he tells the story of Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm in Virginia. Polyface Farm is an integrated, sustainable grass farm where Joel raises chickens, beef, pork and turkeys, rotating one animal after another in a way that benefits all. I loved the part where he tells of the cattle being rotated off a section of pasture after one day of grazing, to be followed three days later by the laying hens, which eat the larvae in the cattle’s manure which mature in four days. So the laying hens get the protein of the maggots while spreading the manure around with their scratching, which benefits the soil and its grass cover. They also cut down on the fly population. Nature’s way, it seems to me.

Unfortunately, most supermarket chicken comes from the intensive farming community where thousands of birds, with their upper beak removed to help prevent cannibalism, are crowded into single story barns, often on wire mesh floorings so their droppings can be flushed away into outdoor lagoons. The barns are equipped with 24 hour a day feed and watering systems and the lights burn 24/7. These birds are in a high stress environment for the 6 weeks they live, eating feeds that are corn based with who-knows-what animal waste byproducts mixed in besides the ubiquitous antibiotics that are required to prevent outbreaks of disease amongst the flock and hormones to stimulate growth. These animals never go outdoors, never touch dirt, never eat bugs, or even scratch about, as is their nature. I’ve read that up to 30% of these flocks may expire in a single growth cycle, but these losses are still within the range of economic acceptability to the poultry industry. While these chickens are cheap, they have bland flavor, yellow skin and little chicken taste. They are best avoided.

When I was a child growing up in Bradford, roast chicken was a Sunday supper treat. The birds were raised by our neighbor, Ed Peters (known affectionately at our house as” Grandpa Peters”) outside in a large pen behind his house. Grandpa would chop off their heads, pluck and eviscerate a bird before presenting it to Mom, who would roast it to a turn, often with a savory stuffing, and make gravy from the drippings. We loved those Sunday meals and the chicken tasted like chicken.

But over the years and with the advent of greater and greater food regulation from the FDA, ostensibly in the name of food safety (but don’t think politics wasn’t involved), local poultry production died out, and out-of-state agribusiness took over, introducing what is now the intensive farming system, which I call an abomination. This system violates one of the most basic elements of the farming contract…animal husbandry. In exchange for basic care, feeding and shelter, provided in a humane manner, our farm animals provide us with wholesome meat for our table. Animals raised naturally without the need for artificial supplements produce a product that tastes better than one raised in the bizarro-world of today’s major agricultural producers. If you are ever near a confinement animal production facility, you will know it, if not from the proliferation of flies, surely from the smell. And they want you to eat the results. Ugh!

Fortunately, if you’re tuned in to the local food scene, you can avoid those mass produced chickens (or beef, lamb or turkey), and get yourself some tasty birds from real farmers who practice responsible husbandry. We love the white-fleshed chickens Ray produces, and I know you will too. They do cost a little more, but knowing where your food comes from and how it is produced more than makes up for the added cost.

Now that we know where to find a good bird, a few words on proper storage and handling of chicken. Like all perishable proteins, one must observe basic food safety to prevent sickness. Frozen chicken should be thawed in only one of two ways: either in the refrigerator, which will take a couple of days, or under cold running water, which will take a number of hours. I guess you can thaw chicken in the microwave, but I don’t do that, so I won’t comment on the merits of that approach. Never leave a frozen chicken on the counter at room temperature to thaw out. This is a potential recipe for disaster as raw chicken can include a number of bacteria including the dreaded salmonella bacteria, which may not only make you very sick, it can kill you. Undercooked chicken can also harbor salmonella, so do cook it to at least 160 degrees, although the FDA favors 170 degrees.

Chicken and all meats should have minimum time in the “danger zone”, temperature between 40 degrees and 140 degrees. In this temperature zone, bacteria multiply rapidly and even cooking the meat well done may not destroy all of the bacteria. Besides being conscious of the danger zone, I always cut up my poultry on a plastic cutting board while wearing vinyl gloves. Don’t use a wooden cutting board as bacteria are apt to find a home in microscopic abrasions in the wood, and can cross contaminate other foods place thereon. After having dismembered my bird, I remove my gloves and only use tongs to touch the meat thereafter. Everything the chicken touches should be carefully sanitized with antibacterial soup and/or a bleach solution.

Chicken benefits from being brined before it is cooked. Brining pre-seasons the chicken, and allows for the bird to be fully cooked without the breast meat drying out. Everybody likes chicken nice and juicy, so try brining your 3 to 4 lb. chicken for 8 to 12 hours in the following solution:

1 gallon Water
1 cup Kosher salt
½ cup Sugar
1 bunch Fresh tarragon
1 bunch Fresh parsley
2 each Bay leaves
1 head Garlic, sliced horizontally
1 each Onion, sliced
3 tbl Black peppercorns, lightly crushed
2 each Lemons, halved

Place all the ingredients in a stockpot and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. Allow the brine to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until chilled. Add a fresh or thawed chicken to the brine and weight it down with a plate to keep it submerged. Refrigerate for 8 to 12 hours, then remove the bird, rinse it under cold water, pat it dry and place it uncovered in the refrigerator for 3 hours or more, up to a full day. This allows the skin to become completely dry so it will crisp up nicely when roasted. Due to the sugar in the brine, you may want to cover the chicken with a tent of aluminum foil, if it starts to brown too quickly.

Peas


For those of you who are following along with us in eating seasonally, now is another of those once-a-year times when you can enjoy a special treat. Fresh garden peas are now available. I picked up some little beauties at Pierson’s Farm Stand in Bradford recently, and I note that Vital Communities latest communication directed us to locally available sources, if you don’t have some growing in your garden. The ones Rosemary and I planted in April are almost ready…I think we’ll be able to pick some this week. Of course, you end up eating a lot of them right off the vine.

While we speak of peas as a vegetable, technically they are a fruit, being the seeds of the legume plant pisum sativum. Peas are a cool weather plant so we usually see them in early summer as they can be planted in the very early spring, and most varieties have a growing season of about 60 days. Also popular are varieties where we eat not only the seeds, but also the edible pods; these are known as sugar snap peas where the pod is cylindrical and the seeds immature and snow peas where the pods are flat. Snow peas are usually associated with Asia cooking as they lend themselves to stir frying, but they are also delicious raw in a salad.

When selecting fresh peas, look for the littlest ones you can find. As peas mature, they get larger, harder and starchy. While still good, they are less interesting than the young baby peas, and need additional cooking time. If you have a copy of Julia Child’s classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, she gives recipes for peas in three stages of development, from the smallest baby peas to the large, mature ones.

If we allow the peas to mature on the vine, they can be dried and will keep almost indefinitely. In the fall and winter we enjoy pea soup made with these dried legumes, and they provide a hearty nutritious meal when simmered with a ham bone or ham hock and diced vegetables like carrots and potatoes. Dried peas can be roasted and salted and then eaten as a snack, or flavored with wasabi, a spicy powder made from Japanese horseradish.

Garden peas, also known as English peas, do freeze well, so they are available year round from your freezer or the grocery store. They are one of the few frozen vegetables I use in the winter, but almost always in a dish with other ingredients, not as a stand-alone vegetable dish. They provide a nice visual appeal to winter pasta dishes or as a last minute addition to a hearty beef and vegetable stew.

Peas can be quickly simmered in boiling water and served with a pat of butter and a sprinkling of minced spearmint as a vegetable accompaniment to any protein like beef, chicken or fish, but especially salmon. But there are many other uses and here are a couple of ideas.

In Italy baby peas are included in a classic dish, risi e bisi or rice and peas. This dish can be made more or less soupy, depending on y our mood or use in the meal. Some serve it like a soup in a bowl, while others like a risotto on a plate. The key to its success is the freshness of the peas, so I make it during the height of the pea season and forget about it in the winter.

To serve 4 you will need 2 pounds of fresh peas in their pods. Shell the peas and reserve the pods to be used in making the broth in which to cook the rice. I use the best Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese I can find for this dish.

2 lb Fresh peas in the pods
1 ea. Yellow onion, small, diced
1 ea. Carrot, diced
1 ea. Garlic clove, small
1 ea. Bay leaf
Salt

4 tbl. Butter
2 oz. Pancetta, diced
1 ea. Yellow onion, medium, peeled and minced
1 ea. Garlic clove, minced
2 tbl. Extra virgin olive oil
1 ½ cups Arborio rice
Freshly grated black pepper
¾ cup Flat leaf Italian parsley, minced
½ cup Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Shell the peas (usually out on the front porch) and reserve the pea pods. Place the pods in a medium saucepan, add the small onion, carrot, garlic clove, bay leaf and salt and cover with 8 cups of water. Bring to a simmer and cook slowly for 45 minutes to an hour to make a pea-vegetable stock. Strain the stock into a small saucepan, pressing on the solids to extract all the liquid you can. You should have about 6 cups of liquid.

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add the diced pancetta and minced onions and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are just starting to take on some color, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the olive oil, the garlic and the rice. The rice needs to be cooked in the hot fat for 2 to 3 minutes, or until it turns opaque. Add a ¾ cup of the pea broth and cook slowly, stirring often until most of the broth has been absorbed. Add more stock and continue cooking, adding stock as needed, and stirring frequently, for about 15 minutes. At this point, add the shelled peas and cook another 3 to 4 minutes until the rice is tender but still slightly firm, and the peas are just cooked through. Stir in the parsley, salt and pepper, the rest of the butter and ¼ cup of the cheese, reserving the rest for passing at the table. If you want to serve as a soup, add additional broth, about a cup and serve in soup bowls.

A New England tradition around 4th of July is to have a salmon with fresh peas and potatoes. Here’s how we make it at our house.

For 6 servings you will need the following:

2 lbs. New potatoes or fingerling potatoes
1 ¼ tsp. Salt
1 lb. Fresh peas, shelled
1 tbl. Fresh basil, chiffonade, or use fresh spearmint
Freshly grated black pepper
2 tbl. Butter
½ cup Cream, light or heavy
½ cup Parsley, minced

We leave the skin on the new potatoes, cutting them into pieces and simmering, covered, in about an inch of salted water until just done, 20 minutes or so. About 4 minutes before the potatoes are done, add the shelled peas, the basil and the butter. Uncover the pot to allow the water to mostly boil off, add the cream and minced parsley, bring just to the simmer, cook slowly for few minutes to allow the potatoes to absorb some of the cream, turn off the heat, correct the seasoning, and serve with poached or grilled salmon. Yummy!

Strawberries


Mid June in New England and the strawberries are ripening all over the Upper Valley. The air is warm, the sun shining, and the strawberries are plumping up and turning red, ready to burst into your mouth with that pure sweetness of nature. Farm stands up and down the valley are promoting their berries, and customers are picking up a quart or two to take home, or planning on picking their own and making preserves or freezing some for next winter. Strawberry festivals will happen around early July, and shortly thereafter this local delicacy will disappear until next summer, although some producers are now growing an ever-bearing variety that continues beyond the traditional June-early July season we’ve always known.

The Bradford area used to be a big strawberry-producing center, and berries were shipped out by rail to metropolitan cities like Boston or Hartford. Strawberry fields covered the Lower Plain and beyond, and every kid that wanted a summer job got an opportunity to pick strawberries for about 6 weeks each summer. I think we got about a nickel a quart (or was it 2 cents?) when I was young. No charge for what you ate.

Of course, strawberries can be eaten sliced up with a little sugar or maple syrup, perhaps, or on ice cream, but the classic presentation, which always produced whoops of joy and anticipation was Mom’s Strawberry Shortcake, slathered with butter and ladled with freshly whipped cream and fresh-from –the-garden sweet strawberries with a hint of tartness. It was always a treat at our house, and rarely did a slice remain after our family of five kids got through with dessert.

Now I have to admit, Mom used Bisquick to make her shortcake and we liked it just fine. Bisquick is a Betty Crocker product which is merely a pre-mixture of flour, salt, baking powder, cream of tarter, instant dry milk, and shortening. It’s a convenience food, which can be used to make pancakes, biscuits and scones. I don’t use it in my kitchen, so let’s explore the world of homemade biscuits which we use in our shortcake.

First, some people, or perhaps more accurately supermarkets, used sponge cake or angle food cake to make strawberry shortcake. This is a bogus product in my mind as strawberry shortcake is historically made with a biscuit dough. Mind you that “biscuits” as we know then in America are quite different from biscuits found across the pond in Europe. There biscuits are what we call “cookies,” but here biscuits are a form of quick bread made with a chemical leaven like baking powder.

There are lots of different biscuit recipes, some using a combination of butter and shortening, some all butter, cheeses, milk or cream, pepper, spices and or herbs, you name it. It all depends on what purpose the biscuits will be use for, whether to accompany breakfast or as part of a luncheon menu, or even to top a stew or a braise.

In our case, we’re interested in a slightly sweetened, flaky biscuit dough that will absorb some of the strawberry juices and complement the fruit and freshly whipped cream. Some of the keys to making a good biscuit dough is to have the butter and/or shortening chilled before mixing, refrigerating the dough after its made and before it is cut (if you are cutting it), and using a sharp biscuit cutter or knife so that you cuts don’t mash the sides of the biscuit together, which will prevent it from rising to its full potential. Flakey biscuits contain all butter, but to make the biscuits flakey and tender, use a combination of butter and shortening in a ratio of approximately 2:1.

For nine 2” square biscuits or one large biscuit shortcake:

2 cups Unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp. Salt
1 tbl. Sugar
2 ½ tsp Baking powder
4 tbl. Butter, cold
¼ cup Shortening, cold
½ cup Milk
1 ea. Egg, large

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Cut in the chilled butter and shortening, using a pastry blender or your fingers until the mixture is like coarse crumbs. Don’t over do this step.

Measure the milk into a measuring cup and add the egg, whisk together. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and stir to just combine. Dump the mixture onto a lightly floured work surface and knead quickly to bring it all together. Don’t knead too much as we don’t want to have much gluten development. Pat the dough into a 6” x 6” square, or a large circle, about ¾” thick, wrap in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the biscuit dough from the freezer. It will be stiff, but still soft enough to work. Using a sharp knife, sharp dough scraper or pizza wheel, cut the dough into 2” squares, or leave the circle of dough whole. Alternatively, cut into rounds with a sharp biscuit cutter. Place the biscuits on a parchment paper lined sheet pan, or on a lightly greased sheet pan. Bake 16 minutes or so until lightly brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

If you bake the whole circle of biscuit dough extend the cooking time to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the strawberries by stemming and cutting in half. Sprinkle with some sugar and let them macerate while the biscuit dough is baking. Whip some cream with a little sugar and a splash of vanilla extract until soft and fluffy, what is known as soft peak.

When the biscuit dough comes out of the oven (we use the big circle for strawberry shortcake, but you can make individual ones with the 2” square biscuits) let it cool a moment, then slice in half. Butter the bottom piece generously, cover with half the sliced berries with their juices and whipped cream. Top with the other half of the biscuit, butter the top, add more berries and juice and more whipped cream. Bring to the table and stand back!

Meals

I just wanted to write a column about the preparation of a simple supper than can be produced in less than 30 minutes without a lot of fancy ingredients. But “No!” its not that simple…first we need to consider what “supper” constitutes as one of a number of daily meals we consume.

We all know what breakfast is…don’t we? Breaking one’s fast is the first “meal” or at least the first eats of the day. In many cultures, including ours, it usually includes bread in one form or another, and some sort of beverage like fruit juice, coffee or tea.

It may be a quick snack on the way out the door (toast or an English muffin with peanut butter or jam, or a breakfast sandwich where you pick up your coffee), or a complete sit down meal. At our house, breakfast is a homemade whole grain cereal with fruit or nuts, flax seed oil (for omega-3s) and coffee. An Irish breakfast can include eggs, rashers of bacon, hash browned potatoes, white sausage (boudin blanc), blood sausage (boudin noir), baked beans, fried tomatoes, toast, butter, marmalade and maybe a kipper (smoked herring) on the side. In Italy we went to a pasticceria for cappuccino and dolci, the sweet pastries, like croissants, that were still warm from the oven in the back. Lumberjacks and truckers wolf down steak and eggs with toast, butter and preserves, pancakes and waffles with maple syrup, corned beef hash and fried potatoes; all washed down with steaming pots of coffee. So breakfast is all over the place as to its quantity of food consumed and the pace and setting where it is consumed.

There are myriad patterns on the daily meal cycle. In former times where the men went off to work and the women tended the home, a big breakfast was required as the men might not eat again until the evening. Although in most cultures a mid-day repast, even if just a hunk of bread with a piece of cheese, constitutes what we refer to as lunch.

In today’s busy world, a three-meal pattern predominates in the breakfast, lunch and supper scenario. Breakfast should be fairly substantial as the body hasn’t been fed for 10 hours or more, and it needs some energy to get up and get going. Lunch, also known as “dinner” in most parts of the country (not to be confused with “supper” which is the evening meal), is usually a soup, sandwich, salad or combination of these three, which is meant to sustain one until supper. In Italy they have la merenda, a work stoppage where bread, salami, cheese and wine are consumed; in England, the “elevens” when tea and crumpets may be served at 11:00 AM.

And then some time in the evening, from as early as 5 PM in some households to 9:00 PM or even later in others, we have supper, considered the main meal of the day. Supper is the largest meal and traditionally includes a protein (meat, chicken, or fish), a starch (potato, pasta or rice) and a vegetable, be it cooked or raw as in a salad. There may be bread also served and perhaps a desert. Milk is often served, particularly if children are eating, but also water, wine or (heaven forbid) soda pop!

Now the challenge for weight and health conscious Americans is to eat a good balance of foods including grains, fruits, vegetables and protein while limiting our caloric intake to 2,000 – 2,500 calories or so for the average person. Candies, sodas, French fries and processed “junk foods” are our caloric enemies, and add inches to our waists while providing only a transitory pleasure.

In our household we are not Atkins’ fans (did you know he weighed over 270 lbs when he fell on the ice and died from a head injury), but we do not eat too much starch (i.e. carbohydrates) with our supper. Pasta based meals are the exception, of course, but we keep our pasta meals down to one or two a week as a rule.

Most weekdays, particularly at this time of the year, we eat a piece of fish, chicken or beef with a cold salad that includes a variety of local lettuces. We’ve had mesclun mix, Bibb, Tom Thumb lettuce, spinach, arugula, mustard greens, Romaine and red leaf lettuces from area farm stands and farmers’ markets so far this spring. Thinly sliced radishes and carrots (I use a Japanese mandolin for slicing vegetables) are included in the salad along with some sort of cheese, crumbled or cubed, toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds, sprouts if we have them, and perhaps a sauted Vidalia onion or some sweet red pepper, skinned and seeded. Recently we’ve included some small asparagus spears thinly sliced on the bias and some new English peas that I couldn’t resist even though they came from down country. Our basil plants are starting to produce, so a few leaves help liven up the salad, particularly when we include some Long Wind tomatoes, which we usually have on hand. And homemade garlic, parmesan croutons are always a welcome addition. I make them in a hot oven (425 degrees) with staling Red Hen Bakery loaves, crusts removed. I toss cubed bread with olive oil, salt, pepper, minced garlic and grated parmesan cheese and bake on a parchment paper lined sheet pan, turning after 10 minutes. Watch they don’t burn! Remove when golden brown and store at room temperature.

I usually dress the salad with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar unless I make a quick vinaigrette which can include a teaspoon and a half of mustard (I like grainy Dijon), some minced shallot or garlic, red wine or balsamic vinegar whipped up while extra virgin olive oil is drizzled in, some fresh herbs from the garden, and maybe a touch of maple syrup with salt and pepper. The mustard acts as an emulsifier to bind the oil and vinegar, but it won’t stay combined over time, so put it in a squeeze bottle if you don’t use it all the first day so you can shake it up next time you need it.

Along with this meal-in-itself salad, we have a piece of broiled or baked fish or chicken, or a grilled steak or burger, keeping the protein in the 3 to 6 oz serving size. You’ll get all the protein you need from this small serving, but if you need more, add a piece of good bread.

Bread & Cheese

Now it is true that my approach to food may be a little more intense than most. When I want to research a dish or develop a new recipe, I want to know the history of the food I’m preparing, where its ingredients come from, and how I can make it as close to the original as possible, at least the first time I prepare it. (This gives me a benchmark for future preparations, particularly if I decide to make some changes, which I often do.) My current thinking also encompasses the seasonality of the ingredients and their availability from local sources.

Those that have followed this column over the past few months will have noted that some of the recipes I’ve published are perhaps a little more labor intensive or ingredient rich than they are accustomed to preparing at home. These are my weekend recipes. I prepare a lot of easy meals during the work week as we tend to eat simply prepared meats or fish with a salad most nights, or a pasta with vegetables and/or a protein, a side salad and a piece of fruit, or a soup with salad and some good bread. Really good bread can make a meal!

Rosemary and I are fortunate as our son Asa, a very accomplished chef and baker in his own right, works at Red Hen Bakery in Middlesex, Vt. Asa brings us Red Hen’s artisan, hand-crafted, organic breads when he visits, which is frequently as his clothes need washing every couple of weeks and we have high speed internet access, two essentials for our young man. Red Hen produces what I believe are some of the finest breads in the State of Vermont. We’ve purchased them at the Hanover Coop for many years, so we were delighted when Asa was employed by Red Hen and has quickly moved up to mixing and baking their many varied loaves.

Bread of the quality produced by Red Hen can easily be a focal point of a light dinner. I toast the bread for bruschetta, an appetizer originally developed in Tuscany as a showcase for the new olive oil pressed in the fall. The bread can be toasted on the grill, fried in oil in a sauté pan, or baked in a hot oven until golden brown. While still warm, it is rubbed with a slightly crushed clove of garlic, drizzled with good extra virgin olive oil, and perhaps sprinkled with some coarse salt. Simple and delicious, but the bread is a key factor. Wonder Bread won’t cut it for this dish!

We also like to top bruschetta was Long Wind Farm tomatoes (East Thetford), chopped and seasoned with extra virgin olive oil, chiffonade of fresh basil, salt and pepper. (To chiffonade basil, take the individual leaves, pile them up together, roll up tightly and shred on a diagonal with a chef’s knife. You’ll produce thin slivers of basil for garnish.) A third topping we like is made with white beans (I use cannellini beans, but Great Northern are also good), which have to be soaked overnight and then simmered for about an hour in unsalted water with a clove of garlic until they are soft, but not mushy. I add salt the last few minutes of cooking to season the beans, but adding salt earlier will slow down the beans’ cooking and toughen their skin. After the beans are cooked, I sauté them in olive oil with minced garlic and season them with chopped fresh sage and Parmesan or Romano cheese.

Now a note on the Italian cheeses I use. Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese is the “undisputed king of cheeses,” as Mario Batali is fond of saying. It is nutty, piquant and slightly salty, produced from cows’ milk. It is usually grated, but is delicious in small shards with a drop of aged balsamic vinegar. It is wickedly expensive as it is produced in Parma in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, and is aged from 18 months to 3 years. The cost of transportation to the US, and the current weakness of the American dollar against the euro have increased the domestic price to over $20. a pound. A cheaper alternative is Grana Podano, a Parmigianno-like cheese made outside of Parma but still in Emilia-Romagna. It is also a cows’ milk cheese, but somewhat more muted in flavor than it more famous counterpart as it is usually not aged as long. However, it sells for one half to one third less than Parmigianno-Reggiano, so it is much more affordable. There is also a Argentine produced “parmesan” cheese known as Reggianito which is somewhat salty and no where as nutty as true Parmigianno-Reggianno, but still can be used in dishes where the cheese is incorporated with other ingredients. I prefer the real stuff if I’m grating over pasta, gnocchi or the like. And lastly, Blythedale Farm in Corinth makes their Cookeville Grana in the style of Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese. It is best freshly grated, and is a very acceptable local alternative to the pricier imports. We love Parmigianno-Regianno, but we love local even more.

I also like Pecorino Romano, a sheeps’ milk cheese from Italy, which is salty and sharp in taste, but is a lot less expensive than other imported Italian cheeses. Try a small piece out next time you’re browsing the cheese counter. I think you’ll like it.

Asparagus


So I’m still on a vegetable kick as my asparagus bed is starting to produce. We had the first few spears in a salad the other night, and there will be enough to cut today for dinner this evening.

Asparagus is a member of the lily family. Its’ Latin name is asparagus officinalis and it has been cultivated for thousands of years. Originating is Eurasia, it was widely grown by the Romans, and is prominent throughout Europe and North America. It is related to the grasses with which it shares a similar structure, unlike most vegetables where we eat the fruit or leaves. We eat the young shoots, which are thick and fleshy, as they emerge from the ground with their tips firm and tight. If left untouched, the spears will shoot up and develop into a large fern-like plant with the tip sending out its photosynthetic branches, known as phylloclades.

It takes three years for a newly planted bed of asparagus to become productive, partially accounting for its high price. As asparagus is a heavy feeder, a deep trench is dug, the bottom filled with good compost or rotted manure, and then a thin layer of soil. The asparagus crowns are laid out about two to three feet apart and covered with more dirt and compost. Over the course of the first year, after the initial small shoots appear, more soil is piled on until the trench is filled to ground level. The bed should be weeded well so that the new plants can establish themselves without undue competition. In the fall, we cut down the dead plants and remove the debris to the compost bin.

By the third year the shoots are large enough to begin to harvest. From then on, the bed will produce an abundance of asparagus spears between mid-May and late June. I’ve read that if you cut down the plants in the early spring they will produce a crop later in the season, but I’ve never tried it, because when the spears begins to appear, we eat all we can until they become too small to bother with. We then allow to plant to grow, the tips to start branching out, and the fern-like plant to emerge. Thereafter, we dress the bed with rotted manure, mulch it, and move on to other vegetables in the garden. There is still time to initiate a bed in your garden this year, and it is certainly worth the effort as a good bed can last for 20 years or more.

Here in the United States, as well as in Italy, asparagus is eaten green, although the tips vary in color from green to violet to purple. In northern Europe, they hill up the asparagus to blanch the plant, keeping the spears white. This is said to produce a milder flavor, but I can’t attest to that.

The tip is the most prized part of the plant as well as the most delicate. For that reason, the classic way to cook asparagus is standing up in a tall, slender pot made expressly for asparagus cooking. The bottom of the pot is filled with 1” or so of water, the spears placed in the boiling water tips up, the pot covered. In this way, the stalks and tips are cooked by the rising steam.

We like asparagus roasted in a hot oven, after having been tossed in olive oil with salt and pepper, or grilled over hard wood coals. In both of these instances, the flavor is more concentrated then by cooking in boiling water. Asparagus loves to be served with a grating of Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese, and it is often wrapped with prosciutto after it has been blanched. Try wrapping it with prosciutto and puff pastry before baking in the oven. Blanched asparagus is paired with butter or a rich sauce like Hollandaise, or the young tender spears can be eaten raw with just a bit of olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. It also makes a wonderful creamed soup with the tips floating on top as an attractive garnish.

If purchased in the store or from a farm stand, often the bottom of the spear will be woody and inedible. Snap the bottom of the spear off, and consider peeling the spear to just below the tip. This will assure a nice tender spear without the stringy skin.

One side note; asparagus eaters excrete methyl mercaptan, which can cause on strong odor in one’s urine. It is not detectable in all people.

Here’s a recipe for 6 that combines asparagus with its cousin the leek, a wonderful vegetable in its own right.

2 lb. medium asparagus
2 tbl. extra virgin olive oil
2 oz. pancetta, unrolled and cut into 1” pieces
1 cup leek, thinly sliced, white and pale green part only
Salt and freshly grated pepper

Snap off the bottom of the spears and cut asparagus into 1” lengths on the bias, separating the tips from the stem pieces. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt. While the water is coming to the boil, sauté the pancetta in olive oil, stirring occasionally, until almost crisp, about 5 minutes. Add the thinly sliced leek and cook until wilted, but not colored, a minute or two. Meanwhile, blanch the asparagus pieces in the boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes, adding the tips after the water comes back to the boil, until just tender. Drain and add to the skillet with the leeks and pancetta. Season with salt and pepper, and toss to coat. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve immediately with roast chicken, lamb or rabbit.

Spinach Pie


One of the earliest local vegetables one can find now is spinach. Many farmers start the plants in their greenhouses and have beautiful plants ready for harvest during May. It is a cool weather plant, which tends to bolt in hot weather, going to seed with few leaves to harvest. Following a series of spring crops, look for it return in the fall as the weather cools and leaf production returns.

Spinacia oleracea, a member of the beet family, originated in Persia where it was cultivated as early as the 4th century AD. It arrived in Europe, via China and Tibet, in the 11th century when Arabic invaders conquered Spain. It took until the 16th century for it to become established as more than a novelty in Italy, where it is widely grown and consumed today.

As a mild laxative due to the oxalic acid it contains, it was originally used for medicinal purposes. The nutritional benefits of spinach, primarily due to its high iron content, are widely recognized today. It is also a source for Vitamin A and contains phenolic antioxidants and compounds that reduce potential cancer causing damage to our DNA. Also, folic acid, an extremely important vitamin of the B complex, converts a by-product of our cells metabolism, homocysteine, into the amino acid methionine, which prevents blood level increases in homocycteine which can cause damage to blood vessels, and possibly contribute to heart disease and stroke. So eat your spinach not only for its mild taste, but also for its benefits on your health.

Spinach is cooked primarily by steaming or blanching in a large pot of boiling water. When cooked, its volume is significantly reduced by approximately 2/3s. My experience is that cooked spinach is about ½ the weight of uncooked spinach, so 1 lb. of fresh, leafy spinach will yield ½ lb cooked, drained and squeezed dry spinach.

We eat spinach in a variety of ways; chopped cooked spinach combines nicely with ricotta cheese, a little Parmigiano-Reggiano and a sprinkling of fresh nutmeg to fill homemade raviolis or as a stuffing for lasagna, giant shells or manicotti. Spinach braises nicely with butter, which it tends to absorb, making it a rich vegetable accompaniment for chicken or beef. Creamed spinach is a classic in steak houses, and we like ours with a shot of Pernod mixed in. However, one of our favorite ways to enjoy spinach is in a spinach pie. There are numerous spinach pie recipes including Greek style with feta, garlic and Kalamata olives baked in puff pastry, but the following Italian version has been a big hit with my family as well as the patrons of Boldo’s, our now closed eating establishment in Fairlee. This was one of those recipes we made almost every day, and rarely was there any left at closing. So try this recipe out and it will become a signature dish in your repertoire.

Makes one 9” pie in a fluted, false-bottom tart pan, which should be buttered.

The pie dough is made with 2 cups all purpose flour, ½ tsp. salt, 10 tbl. butter, 3 eggs and 2-3 tbl. water, if needed. Mix the flour and salt together, cut in the butter, mixing with the flour until the pieces of butter are the size of small peas. Blend in the eggs and gather into a dough. Add the extra water if necessary to bring the dough together. Knead very briefly as you don’t want a lot of gluten formation, pat into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour while preparing the filling.

The spinach filling consists of 1 cup of currants, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes, 2 tbl. olive oil, 1 cup of pine nuts (or use walnuts), 2 large Spanish onions, minced, 3 cloves garlic, minced, 3 lb. fresh spinach, blanched, drained, squeezed dry and chopped, salt, pepper and fresh nutmeg, 2 eggs, beaten, 2 cups of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated, and one egg, beaten, to wash the top of the pie before baking.

Toast the pine nuts in a large skillet for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently so they don’t burn. Remove the pine nuts to a bowl and add the olive oil, onions and garlic to the skillet. Saute a few minutes until wilted, but not colored. Add the aromatics to the toasted pine nuts, then add the chopped spinach, seasoned with salt, pepper and a good grating of nutmeg. Stir in the Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, two beaten eggs and the currants, drained. Mix well until thoroughly combined.

Remove the dough from the fridge and lop off about 1/3 of the disk, reserving for the top. Roll out the rest of the dough until about 1/8th inch thick and line a buttered false-bottomed tart tin with the dough. Leave about 1” overhang. Fill the tart pan with the spinach mixture, evening it off with a spatula. Roll out the rest of the dough into a circle, and cover the top. Crimp the edge all around, brush the top with beaten egg, cut some air vents in the top crust, and bake in a 375 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until golden brown and delicious.

It is wonderful warm or at room temperature. This recipe feeds 8 generously or even more if served as an appetizer.

Farmers' Markets

Spring is definitely in the air, and I attended the opening day of the Norwich Farmers’ Market on Saturday morning, despite the rain. It’s the first farmers’ market of the season, to my knowledge, and the Norwich Farmers’ Market is the grand daddy of farmers’ markets in this area; the envy of many towns around. Rightfully so, as the blend of farmers, craftsmen, food vendors, cheese makers, bread bakers and clothing producers makes for a large variety of products, all locally made, from which to choose.

I picked up locally raised, grass-fed meats from ground beef to beef sirloin tips, some beautiful inch thick pork chops (Back Beyond Farm in Tunbridge), and some garlic-beef sausage (Cloudland Farm in Pomfret). Organic eggs were plentiful as well as a large variety of local lettuces from arugula to romaine to leaf lettuce. I also got some organic spinach and Swiss chard just out of the ground from Kevin and Laura Channel of Your Farm (Fairlee). Can’t get any fresher than that!

And to top things off, the cows’ milk blue cheese from Woodcock Farm Cheese Company, made with two different molds, one for the blue-veined interior and a second for the golden-colored washed rind, is rich and creamy with a distinctive bite. Woodcock Farm is a sheeps’ milk cheese producer, so finding a cows’ milk cheese from them is unusual.

Finding unique, to say nothing of delicious, artisan-produced products is part of the lure and fun of farmers’ markets. And you can talk with the producers themselves, who can give you details as to how the food is produced. In today’s world of massive food recalls, poisoned products from abroad, bio-engineered seeds and plants, growth hormone and antibiotic injected meat animals, industrially produced processed foodstuffs, and on and on, being able to meet the producer and talk with them as to the details of how their products are made is HUGH! If you are interested in not only good, tasty food, but also good nutrition and good health, go to farmers’ markets and stock up. Plus it helps the area economy by keeping local dollars circulating locally. It’s a win-win for everyone.

The Vital Communities website (www.vitalcommunities.org) lists 26 farmers’ markets including the Bradford Farmers’ Market, the Piermont Farmers’ Market, and ones in Hanover, Lebanon and Norwich. I thought I saw something about a Wells River-Woodsville farmers’ market starting up, and more and more are popping up all over. It’s a very healthy sign and more than welcome trend. We’re starting to realize that our health and well being is being threatened by the industrialized and globally commercialized food conglomerates with their chemically processed food products that are marketed to us as convenience foods so we can live an easier life. And a shorter one…

But enough editorializing, I encourage you to take control of your eating and visit local farmers’ markets and farm stands. It’s a chance to get outside, talk with local artisans, see your friends and neighbors, catch up on the news, and make new acquaintances. I can hardly wait until next Saturday already

Spinach Pasta

So the cool weather has returned, as is befitting and expected of April in these climes, but I got my peas in along with spinach, lettuce, radishes and carrots. The garlic is up, as is the rhubarb, and Rosemary’s riot of daffodils everywhere you look. Fiddleheads will be appearing, as well as the wild onion known as ramps. Watch for local spinach as farmers have it growing in their hoop houses.

And speaking of spinach, this week I’m writing about home-made pasta…in fact, spinach pasta. I’m assuming that most of you don’t make fresh pasta at home, but it is easy to do if you have a pasta machine, or a pasta roller attachment to your stand mixer. You can roll it out by hand, but that takes a certain amount of patience and stamina to do it successfully. I have a 4’ pasta rolling pin I got in Italy a few years ago, but I usually use the machine; its quicker and easier.

Pasta can be made from a variety of flours...all purpose, whole wheat, tipo “00” (Italian flour made for pasta), spelt, rice flour, durum wheat or semolina. The flour is moistened with water or egg and/or a flavoring/coloring agent like cooked spinach or tomato paste, and kneaded into a dough. After the dough has rested for an hour or more, it is rolled out and cut to shape, dried briefly while a large pot of water is brought to the boil, and cooked for a minute or so until al dente, or slightly firm to the tooth. It should be either added to the sauce so the noodle and sauce can marry for a few moments, or placed in cold water to arrest the cooking so it can be used later.

I make my pasta in the food processor, although it is almost as easy to make it by hand. Here’s how I make spinach pasta for lasagna.

2 jumbo eggs, or 3 medium
1 lb. of fresh spinach, washed, blanched or steamed, drained
3 ½ cups of flour (I use tipo “00” from Bel Aria)

Squeeze most of the liquid out of the cooked spinach and chop it up real fine with a chef’s knife. Put it in the bowl of the food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the flour and eggs and process, shaking the machine a bit, until the dough is pebbly and damp, but not all together. I turn it out on a board and knead the dough for about 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic, but you can let the machine do this for you. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour.

Alternatively, put the flour in the center of a large cutting board, make a well in the center and add the spinach and eggs. Use a fork to mix the eggs and gradually pull in the surrounding flour to form a dough. Knead as above and refrigerate.

After it has rested, I divide the dough into 4 parts, flatten each one with a rolling pin, and roll it out with a pasta machine, starting with the rollers spaced at their maximum, and reducing their spacing until I’m at the next to the lowest setting. I place the sheets of pasta, now about 7” wide and 36” long between damp kitchen towels if I’m using it right away, otherwise I hang it on Rosemary’s clothes rack to dry.

If I want fettuccine or spaghetti, my pasta machine has a cutter attachment, and I cut it before it dries out too much, tossing it onto a sheet pan with semolina or corn meal to prevent the individual noodles from sticking to each other.

For lasagna, I boil the whole noodle in about 5 quarts of water, salted after it comes to the boil, and remove the noodle to a pan of cold water after about 1 minute. Remember, it’s going to cook in the oven later, so don’t overcook the noodle at this stage. It’s more about the noodle than the sauce in Italian cooking, where the noodle is the main attraction, and the sauce compliments it.

For a sumptuous lasagna, I layer cooked spinach noodles with a meat sauce, béchamel sauce, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, making 4 layers before topping with béchamel and cheese and baking in a 350 degree oven, covered with foil, for 40 minutes. I remove the aluminum foil and put it back in the oven for 10 more minutes until hot and bubbly. Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before slicing.

See the side bar for specific recipe details. Caio!

Country-Style Ragu or Meat Sauce

3 Tbl extra virgin olive oil
2 oz. pancetta (or substitute salt pork, blanched)
1 medium onion, minced
1 celery stalk with leaves, minced
1 small carrot, minced
12 oz. beef sirloin tips, chuck or hanger steak, if available
4 oz. boneless pork chop
1 oz. prosciutto di Parma or ham
2/3 cup dry red wine
1 ½ cups chicken stock
2 cups milk
3-4 canned plum tomatoes, drained
Salt & pepper to taste

Saute the pancetta with the onion, celery and carrot in the olive oil, stirring frequently for 10 minutes, or until the onions are slightly colored. Grind the beef, pork and prosciutto together and add to the sauted vegetables. Cook slowly for about 15 minutes until the meats are a deep brown. Drain off any fat and place the contents into a 4-5 qt. saucepan. Deglaze the sauté pan with the red wine, scraping up any fond or residue on the bottom of the pan. When the wine is reduced by half, add to the sauce pan with the meats. Bring the saucepan to a simmer, add ½ cup of stock and allow it to reduce at a slow simmer for 10 minutes. Repeat adding the balance of the stock in two increments, simmering 10 minutes between additions. Include the milk with the last addition of stock, and simmer, partially covered, for 1 hour. Stir frequently. Add the tomatoes, crushing as you put them into the pot, and simmer at a very slow bubble for another 45 minutes. It will be a thick, meaty stew. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve over fresh pasta with a topping of cheese, or use in lasagna.

Bechamel Sauce

4 Tbl (2 oz) unsalted butter
4 Tbl (2 oz) all-purpose flour
2 2/3 cup milk, scalded
Salt and pepper
Fresh nutmeg

Melt the butter in a 3 qt. saucepan. Sprinkle in the flour and whisk until smooth. Stir continuously for 3 minutes, not allowing the resulting roux to brown. Whisk in the milk a little at a time, keeping the mixture smooth, while you slowly bring it to a simmer. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until any floury taste has disappeared. Season with salt and pepper, and grate in a little nutmeg if you like.

Use the béchamel, know in Italian as salsa bisciamella, right away, or take a pat of butter and use it to cover the top of the sauce so a skin doesn’t form while it cools.

Add grated cheese to make a cheese sauce for vegetables.

Lasagne Verdi al Forno

Spread a thin layer of béchamel sauce in the bottom of a 3 quart baking dish. Place cooked spinach pasta noodle(s) over the béchamel. Spread noodle with a thin layer of béchamel, top with a thin layer of ragu and 2 tablespoons of grated Parmigianno-Reggiano cheese. Top with a similar layer, making a total of 4 layers. Save a little béchamel for the top and sprinkle with more Parmigianno. Cover the dish with aluminum foil, being careful to tent it up a bit so it doesn’t touch the top of the lasagna. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, remove the foil and cook an additional 10 minutes. Cool a few minutes before slicing.

Serves 8 to 10 as a first course, or 6 to 8 as a main dish.
Adapted from Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s The Splendid Table.

Grilling


I know the weather has been beautiful and everyone’s breaking out their barbeque grill, be it gas or charcoal, but there are still cool April days ahead, so while I may grill a few items this week, I’m still planning on cooking inside most days until later in May.

A few words, however, on grilling. If you use gas, so be it. I have in the past used gas with satisfactory results, however, I am an aficionado of charcoal primarily because I think if you use the right charcoal, it imparts a more distinct flavor of the grill than gas does. The right charcoal to me is the lump charcoal made from hardwood. I don’t like charcoal briquets, and I absolutely reject the self-lighting type. They stink of petroleum and put a petroleum flavor on anything cooked over them. Similarly I reject charcoal lighter fluid because it does the same thing to food. Ugh!! I don’t want to eat petroleum, nor do I believe you do either.

Real hardwood charcoal is made by lighting a large fire of good hardwood, letting it get blazing hot and then covering it to eliminate the oxygen that causes it to burn. When the fire is completely extinguished by this oxygen deprivation, the results are lump charcoal with no additives to monkey with the flavor of your food.

To light this charcoal, get yourself a chimney fire starter. While they may cost you $20 or more, they will last you for years and years, and you won’t be using petroleum to start your fire. All you need with a chimney fire starter is a single piece of newspaper to get a mess of charcoal light. Crumble the newsprint and place in the bottom of the chimney. Add your lump charcoal above and light the paper. Walk away and in about 10 minutes the charcoal will be going. When it’s all tinged with white and glowing red, pour it into the grill and put the grate in place to preheat because you don’t want to grill on a cold grate.

We grill almost everything from meats to vegetables to breads and starches, even fruit. One of keys of good grilling it to have a range of temperatures on your grill top. You can accomplish this by having your coals pushed to one side instead of having them scattered all over the bottom of the grill. In this way, you can sear your food over the direct heat of the coals, and then let it finish more slowly over the indirect heat when the food is moved to that part of the grate that has only a couple of or no coals beneath the food. This would be particularly important for something like pork chops while will dry out if cooked over direct heat too long.

You should get the grill good and hot before smacking that pasture-raised beef hamburger, lightly brushed with olive oil and salt & pepper, down on the grill. Don’t touch it for 3 minutes minimum, then turn it 90 degrees with a pair of tongs or a spatula, but don’t turn it over. This will create a cross hatch on the presentation side, which will be the side that will be up when it is placed upon a plate or in a bun. After a few more minutes, turn it and repeat the process on the other side.

Beef cooked to 110-120 degrees will be rare, 120-130 is medium rare, and above that is medium and medium well. After any meat comes off the grill, let it rest at least 5 minutes before serving. This permits the meat’s juices to recede to the interior, making the meat juicier.

Its best to use an instant read thermometer (check out Everything But the Cook for cooking equipment) that has been calibrated by placing the probe in boiling water and adjusting the nut beneath the thermometer face to 212 degrees. Insert the thermometer through the side of the meat, not down from the top, and wait until the pointer stops moving, 30 seconds or so. Remember that the temperature of the item grilled will continue to rise for a few minutes after you remove it from the heat. This is known as “care over cooking,” and needs to be minded so things will turn our as you want them and not be over done.

Happy grilling and enjoy that sunshine!

Parsnips

While I am an advocate for eating locally and seasonally, it's quite difficult this time of year to find local produce given that we're just coming off 5 months or more of snow and below freezing temperatures. These conditions just are not conducive to producing fresh local vegetables for out table right now. We all know this.

While I did have the pleasure of eating some locally grown arugula a week or so ago, we won't be seeing local veggies until later in the season, although I'm looking forward to the first parsnips that will be dug as soon as the frost is out of the ground. For those of you who are parsnip fans, you know how sweet they can be after a winter nestled in the frozen earth. If the crocuses are coming up, parsnip season can't be far behind.

So the last of the fall root crops becomes a harbinger for spring...that's nice. It helps tie last year's growing season to this year's. I suppose there is an analogy here about life, but I'm a foodie, not a philosopher, so let's talk parsnips.

Pastinaca sativa, developed during the Middle Ages, is an umbelliferous plant, meaning it is a member of the parsley family. Originally coming from the wild, where the root was small and tough, but with a distinctly sweet parsnip flavor, it was used as a flavoring, and later came under cultivation, which improved its size and edibility.

While known to the Romans, they used it interchangeably with the carrot, to which it is also related. During the Middle Ages, before the starchy potato was imported from South America, it was a staple due to its starch content, but also because of its sweetness, as sugars were either unavailable or very expensive.

As sugars became more readily available and the potato was introduced into Europe, the parsnip's influence waned, and today it is an under-consumed vegetable, primarily because its unusual, semi-sweet taste is difficult to pair with other foods. Although here in New England it is often paired with cod, and it is frequently included in mashed potatoes.

Parsnips tend to be grown in colder climates, and their flavor improves with frost and cold weather. Usually harvested in the late fall, they are best if left to winter over in the garden. Under the freezing ground they convert their starches to sugar, making them delectably sweet when dug in the early spring. It wasn't long ago that I used to frequent a fellow with a pickup truck full of scrubbed white parsnips selling them on the side of the road. Delicious!

One mistake people make in cooking parsnips is peeling them. Much of the flavor rests just under the skin, so in peeling, you are tossing away a lot of it's taste. Better to scrub them with a vegetable brush, cut into equal sized chuncks, toss with some good extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast them on a parchment paper lined half sheet pan in a 425 degree oven, turning them every 10 minutes until soft, about 30 minutes. Serve warm. Roasting concentrates their flavor while retaining their nutrients.

Parsnips develop their maximum flavor if cooked in a covered saucepan with a small amount of liquid, butter and seasonings until the liquid has evaporated, and the parsnips are beginning to saute in the butter. For 6 people:

1 lb. Unpeeled parsnips, quartered if large, cored, if need be, and sliced
2 tbl. Unsaled butter
1 cup Water or chicken stock
Pinch Salt and pepper
2 tbl. Parsley, minced

Using a heavy bottomed sauce pan, bring the liquid to a boil with the parsnips and seasonings, and simmer, covered, 30 minutes or so until the parsnips are soft, but not mushy, and the liquid has evaporated. They should start to sizzle in the butter. If you want to glaze them, either add a little sugar (maple syrup at my house) or honey, and toss in the syrupy glaze until thoroughly coated. Sprinkle with minced fresh parsley, and grab a fork!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Adventures With an Organic Pig


I had a phone call from a farmer I am acquainted with who asked if I would be interested in helping out with a pig butchering which was going to occur within  a week.  The farmer had raised 20 heritage breed Duroc pigs on pasture and organic grain and had already processed 10 of them. The plan was to do 4 more the following week.

I jumped at the chance for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is my interest in charcuterie, and the fact that obtaining pork ingredients necessary to make salamis, sausages and prosciutti is nearly impossible through traditional sources.  In today's world, meat retailers no longer purchase whole carcasses, but only the primal and/or sub-primal cuts, which arrive in boxes.  These cuts are trimmed for the convenience of the retailer, but it's these trimmings that are necessary for the making of various preserved pork products.

The farmer had engaged a neighbor who had learned pig butchery from his father, and he arrived with his son, his scalding tank, propane heater and a variety of knives, meat saws and hog scrappers.  He proceeded to fill the scalding tank 1/3 full of water and heat the water to 150 degrees.  He singled out one of the larger hogs from the herd and dispatched it with a .22 rifle.  We hauled the carcass to the scalding tank and placed it in the hot water.  Within a minute or so the bristles on the pig's hide started to loosen and we applied the bell scrapers to remove them.

As soon as the pig was scrapped clean, it was hoisted with a gambrel attached to a block and tackle into a tree where it was eviscerated.  Among the offal we retrieved the heart, liver, kidneys and the caul, a filmy membrane that encloses the paunch of the pig and is used to make crepinettes, a flat French sausage consisting of minced pork with a savory stuffing wrapped in pieces of the caul.

The carcass was then cut in two down the backbone and hung in the shed to cool.  Three more pigs were similarly processed before we went in for a large lunch, some hard cider and good conversation.

I brought my pig home and hung it in my garage until the weekend when I planned on cutting it up and processing the various parts.

On Sunday I donned my chef's pants, jacket, apron, flat top hat and clogs for sanitary purposes, sanitized my stainless steel work table and put out my plastic cutting boards, each of which was anchored with a damp towel beneath.   I sharpened by boning knives and butcher scimitar and rewashed my meat saw, which had not seen any action for a while.

I brought in  half the pig, and broke it down into its primals; the front shoulder, loin, belly and ham.  I removed the head and carefully cut  off the jowls to make guanciale, a cured product used in Italian dishes pasta all'amatriciana and pasta alla carbonara.

I broke down the front shoulder which I was planning to put mostly into sausage and my home-cured salami, trimmed the belly into bacon, divided the loin into 2 and 3 lb. roasts, trimming off the fatback which would go into the sausages, and boned and trimmed the ham for prosciutto.  I did the same to the other half, saving the ham for brining and smoking over apple wood.

I salted the prosciutto and placed it in a container that I propped up with a brick at one end so the liquid the salt would pull out of the ham could be drained off.  The prosciutto would be re-salted over the next few weeks before being removed from the salt after about 40 days when it will be lightly seasoned with garlic and black pepper, sealed with lard and left to hang for 9 months to a year, at which time it will have lost about a third or more of its original weight and can be eaten raw in thin slices.

I salted the bacons and pork jowls and put them in a cold spot for the next week, overhauling them after 2 or 3 days.  The other ham was placed in a brine, and weighted to remain submerged for the next week.  The following Saturday, I hot smoked the bacons and ham until they reached 150 degrees, glazing the ham with a mustard-brown sugar mix toward the end of its time in the smoker.

On Sunday I made the sweet Italian sausages with fennel, which I froze, and the salamis, which will take 6 months to cure and dry before they can be eaten.  One of the salamis, which were stuffed into beef middles, ripped its casing, so I put it on the fridge for a couple of weeks before roasting it with potatoes.

I don't recommend that most folks dry cure their own salamis unless you are experienced and have the necessary ingredients, like pink salt.  Botulism is a potentially fatal disease that can be contracted from improperly preserved meats.  So caution is the byword.  I cured a lot of pork at Lupa, a Mario Batali restaurant in Greenwich Village during my time in NY, and I've researched the methodology extensively before and after those experiences.

So that's it for today.  Next time I'll start including some recipes for those who crave more than just my stories.




Who's Boldo?



Many people have inquired as to the origin and meaning of the name Boldo's, which henceforth will be my nom de plume.

When I was in New York city in 2005, I took my wife Rosemary to Strand Bookstore on Lower Broadway. Strand's claims to have 18 miles of books on hand, many used, so its a book bargain-hunter's paradise. While Rosemary perused their collection of books on spiritual matters, yoga and martial arts, I check out their large collection of food editions and cookbooks.

After an hour or so, I was feeling a little fatigued, so I sat down on a chair situated on a landing between floors, knowing she would have to come down that way. While I was resting, an art book caught my eye. On its cover was Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Summer portrait. This is an intricate work in which the artist has fashioned a physiognomy using a variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables for the various facial features.

I got up and took down the book, fascinated, and started browsing through the artist's other portraits, numerous of which carried a similar theme. There were pictures of people made up of birds, fish, flowers, animals and the like, but I was particularly attracted to the seasonal quartet of portraits that comprised Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each portrait was made up of those flowers, fruits and vegetables that were in season during each quarter of the year. The seasonal food cycle laid out in these unique portraits spoke powerfully to me, and I knew I had found the icon for my future food business.

Adding to my excitement was the fact that Arcimboldo was Italian, the country whose cuisine I am most interested in; a discussion of which this blog will address in the future.

However, Guiseppe's surname is a mouthful and subject to being mispronounced by Americans, so I decided to shorten it to Boldo's, a two syllable, Italianesque name which connotes, to me, the cyclical nature of the growing seasons, which should correspond to what shows up on our supper table.

I say "should" in the preceding paragraph as today our modern supermarkets have turned seasonality on its head, offering us strawberries and asparagus in the middle of the winter when they are spring-time fare, and fresh corn and green beans year round when they are summer-time foods.

I won't eat a strawberry unless its grown within 20 miles of where I live, so my intake is limited to 6 weeks from early June to mid-July. Of course, if you've ever eaten one of those tasteless Florida strawberries in February, you know it can't hold up next to a fresh berry bursting with nature's sweetness from 4 Corners Farm in Newbury or Cedar Circle Farm's organic berries in East Thetford. Think globally, eat locally, as they say.

And that is a theme I will return to in the future. I am an advocate of eating locally with foods in season. This is the way people all over the world eat, even today, but not in the United States. Here people demand a large variety of fruit, vegetables and proteins without regard to their natural season, and these demands can only be met by importing products, using unconscionable amounts of fossil fuels, from far away states or lands.

We are in an energy crisis, folks. It's time to re-examine our support for non-seasonal products produced thousands of miles from New England and brought here by ever increasing costs. It's time to support the increasingly diversified local agricultural community that produces outstanding food products of a significant variety. And you know what, the local products tastes better, so if you are interested in good taste and healthful food, attend farmers' markets and local farms which sell direct. Get on the Vital Communities website (www.vitalcommunities.org) and you'll be connected to hundreds of local sources. You'll be glad you did.

Next week, my recent adventures with a locally raised organic pig.