Easter Lamb

Next Sunday will be Easter, a time of renewal and rebirth, a harbinger of spring, and lengthening days with the sun moving higher into the sky.  The daffodils are up, as is our garlic, the ice is off the lake, and while sugaring is still ongoing, the buds are starting to appear on the trees, so the end is in sight. 

Easter, a moveable feast, falls on the first Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox, thus is moves around from late March to late April each year.  Passover roughly coincides with Easter, and fell on the full moon on April 30^th  this year.  Both religious holidays are a time of feasting, celebration, family and friends. 

In many regions early spring vegetables like asparagus, fiddleheads, mushrooms and ramps are appearing, and sprightly lambs frolic in the barnyard and peeping chicks are scurrying beneath a warming light.   Plants are germinating in flats in a sunny window and the parsnips have been dug. 

Not everyone likes lamb, the meat of sheep.  Some dislike the smell, which primarily emanates from its tallowy fat while it is cooking, and some find the taste of the meat is too strong.  Our local lamb is usually one month old to twelve months at slaughter, but in other countries they eat mutton and hogget, older sheep, both male and female up to four years old or more.  These latter types are stronger in flavor than the lamb locally produced.  New Zealand lamb, often killed at four months, is quite mild in taste, and only available frozen.

Sheep are grass eaters, but are often finished with grain over the last month before slaughter, producing a fine-grained flesh.  As the animal ages, its flesh gradually changes from a pale pink to a dark red, and its flavor intensifies.  As a red meat, it likes to be cooked rare (125 degrees) to medium (160 degrees) or anywhere in between.  Legs and racks should be allowed to rest for 15 minutes or so before carving to allow the meat juices to redistribute themselves, resulting in a moist, juicy serving.

Lamb chops are cut from the loin, the most prized chops, and can be pan-fried, broiled or grilled, and from the shoulder, which require braising to become tender.  The shoulder and shanks are also braised, and result in luxuriant sauces, which thicken themselves when reduced.  Ground lamb can be combined with pork and beef, made into lamb meat loaf, grilled as burgers, or made into a meat sauce or meatballs.  In the Italian section of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, meat markets sold the lamb head to the Italian grandmothers of the neighborhood, along with whole baby lambs for Easter dinner.

As lamb is somewhat fatty, traditional accompaniments like mint jelly are meant to “cut” the fat, and in other cultures lemons, wine, vinegars, and dried fruits like quince and apricot are common with lamb.  We think of garlic, rosemary and thyme to flavor our lamb, but anchovies are used in Italy and paprika in Spain and Portugal.  Lamb is raised worldwide and eaten throughout the Europe and the Mediterranean, the Arab and Muslim lands, India, Australia and Africa, so it is a universal food. 

Sometimes we have ham at Easter, but this year it’ll be lamb.  Yum!

Raised doughnuts & new maple syrup

When I was growing up, we had six maple trees lining our lawn, and Dad tapped them every spring.  We kids rushed home from school to help gather the buckets for Mom to boil down the sap in her turkey roasting pan, straddling two burners on her stove, until the syrup sheeted, and the wall paper was starting to droop around the kitchen.   New syrup always meant raised doughnuts, and this was the only time of the year that Mom made them for us.  Still warm, puffy doughnuts and lightly heated new maple syrup…do I need to say more! 

The doughnut, sometimes donut, is fried dough, although there are baked doughnuts.  They are made in one form or another all around the world.  Many lands and cultures have their own variations on the theme, from the French beignet and the Italian bomboloni, to meat-filled samosa, the cala, with rice and nutmeg from Trinidad, or the Isreali sufganiyah. 

American doughnuts come in a large variety and are often glazed, frosted or powdered.  Some are stuffed with jelly, fruit or custard, or made with cider in the fall during apple season.  Potato doughnuts are sometimes referred to as “spudnuts,” and the crueler is a twisted bar of doughnut dough, often rolled in caster sugar while still warm.   Old-fashioned doughnuts were spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon and sometime cardamon.  

Doughnuts may be leavened by baking powder or baking soda, which make a denser doughnut, or by yeast, which makes them light and fluffy.  Doughnut dough is moist, enriched with eggs, sugar and fat, resulting in a moderately sticky dough, lending to their light, springy texture when cooked. 

Yeast-raised doughnuts can be made for any weekend morning breakfast, if you like to get up in the morning.  They rise fast in a warm kitchen and can be prepared in 2 hours or so, if made in a stand mixer.  

Doughnuts are cooked at a moderately hot 365 degrees, in plenty of oil.  When the high moisture dough hits the hot oil, it quickly produces steam, which in concert with the leavening agents and any beaten egg, puffs up the doughnut to airy lightness before the outside gets too hard.  The lighter yeasted doughnut rides higher up in the oil than its baking powder brethren, requiring that it be turned over after a minute or so, but leaving a lighter band about its circumference where the outside gets cooked less. 

One word of caution on deep-frying doughnuts:  do not over crowd the pan and allow the oil to drop in temperature.  Soggy, greasy doughnuts are not only not good for you, they don’t taste very good either.  Not that properly cooked doughnuts are “good” for you, but life isn’t worth living if you can’t indulge a little bit now and again.  And spring sugaring season with the new maple syrup only comes once a year, so why not pair it up with the warm goodness of a yeast-raised homemade doughnut…I ate three in a row!

Yeast-Raised Doughnuts

1 ½ cups milk

2 ½ oz (1/3 cup) vegetable shortening

2 Tbl instant yeast

1/3 cup warm water (95-105 degrees F)

2 eggs, beaten

¼ cup sugar

1 ½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

23 oz AP flour, plus some for dusting the work surface

Peanut, canola or vegetable oil for frying.

Place the milk in a saucepan and scald.  Place the shortening in your stand mixer bowl and pour the milk over it.  Set aside.

In a bowl, place the yeast in the water and allow to dissolve 5 minutes.  When the milk in just warm, add the yeast mixture, the eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg and half the flour.  Mix with the paddle starting slowly but increasing the speed to medium until everything is well combined.  Turn off the machine and add the rest of the flour.  Incorporate slowly, then increase the speed to medium until well combined.  Switch to the dough hook, and knead at medium speed for 5 minutes or so, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn dough into a well oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for an hour or until double in bulk.

On a well floured surface, turn out the dough and pat or roll out to 3/8 to ½ inch thick.  Cut doughnuts with a well floured doughnut cutter, placing the rings ½” apart on a parchment paper lined sheet pan.  Cover with a tea towel and let rise 30 minutes or so. 

Preheat the oil in a rondeau or Dutch oven to 365 degrees.  Carefully turn each doughnut over, placing the top-side down in the oil.  Don’t crowd the pan or allow the oil to fall in temperature.  In 1 minute, flip each doughnut over, cooking the other side 1 minute.  Drain on a rack over paper towels.

Toss with sugar or glaze in 10 minutes or so, when slightly cooled.  Or serve with warm maple syrup.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs)

At the moment we seem to be having an early start to spring, however considering it’s only mid-March I don’t think old man winter is completely out of the picture yet.  With Town Meeting behind us, many are planting tomatoes and other plants for their summer gardens.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, it isn’t only this column that advocates eating local foods to the greatest extent possible, as more and more places are promoting themselves by advertising that they sell goods produced in our immediate area.  Restaurants pride themselves on using locally produced fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, cheeses and the like on their menus.  More and more area grocery stores are emphasizing their array of products that are either indigenous to the area, or that some enterprising farmer is growing and developing a local following for.  It’s a good, healthy trend, and it’s happening across the country.  Farmers’ markets are abounding and are more crowded then ever as those that love good, healthy food can now satisfy their cravings while seeing their friends and neighbors in the relaxed atmosphere of these weekly gatherings.

For those that want a steady stream of local agricultural products, farmers offer CSAs, an acronym for Community Supported Agriculture.  A CSA is a form of cooperative where local buyers contract with a local farmer to share in the risks and rewards of the farmer’s production.  Usually the CSA buyer receives a regular distribution of the products available from the farm on any given week.  These products may be fruits and vegetables only, but many CSAs now include the possibility of meat, eggs, flowers or started vegetable plants, and dairy products, be it cheese, butter or milk, raw or pasteurized. 

In the CSA system, the buyer prepays for a summer’s harvest, receiving their weekly distribution either at the farm or sometimes at the farmers’ market.  This new relationship that brings consumers into direct contact with the producer builds a stronger bond between them, resulting in the farmer being able to concentrate more on production of products their consumers want, and less on food waste and financial loss. 

Buyers do not purchase a set number of pounds or pieces of a specific product, but share in the farmer’s production when their products are at their peak of ripeness and flavor.  The benefit to the buyer is having a steady stream of seasonal produce, or other farm products, while knowing that their dollars are working locally.  The farmer is freed up from marketing their products and can focus on the care and production of their plants, soils, crops, animals and fellow workers.  It’s a win win for all involved.

CSAs are designed to provide as much or as little of the farmer’s production as the individual or family needs on a weekly basis, so they can be customized to your individual situation.  There is some risk to the buyer in that weather or pests may damage or limit production, but this risk is spread over a larger number of participants in the CSA approach, while otherwise falling only onto the producer.  If it helps the farmer, it helps the buyer.

So consider buying a CSA from your local farmer.  Its good for you, good for the farmer, and good for our local economy.