Archive for May 2009
Cured Scallops and Green Sputniks
Cured Bay Scallop Salad
Kohlrabi (Green Sputniks)
There’s nothing like raw, simple, vegetal foods once the weather warms. Simple dishes, though they’re never quite that easy to prepare. But ceviche-style is my new favorite way to prepare scallops and the fact that the dish doesn’t require cooking is a plus. I tried this Cured Bay Scallop Salad recipe from Gabriel Rucker of Le Pigeon, one of Portland’s hottest (yet relatively unpretentious) restaurants. Sliced paper thin, the crisp radish, cucumber, apple and red onion slices accented the mellow lemon juice-marinated sea flesh. Red paper flakes and fresh mint slivers really made the plate jump.
And Ivy Manning inspired the other two courses I made (and I say courses because I never seem to have my dishes ready at one time). I want to cook my way through her book. On our radio show she referred to kohlrabi as a vegetable that even intimidates classically-trained chefs and tends to “die a lonely death in the crisper.” But these green Sputnik-shaped vegetables (in the broccoli and cabbage family) are delicious and versatile if you know how to prepare them. We made Ivy’s Kohlrabi Slaw, which is adapted from The Farm Cafe in Portland. Peeling the kohlrabi is key to get at the bulb’s sweet flesh, a crispy cross between broccoli stalk and sweet young cabbage. The rice vinegar and fennel seeds are key ingredients here. Still, I substituted toasted anise seeds and got the same deliciously spciy licorice accent.
And don’t throw out those collards-like kohlrabi greens. They’re an added gift. Again, I followed Ivy’s simple recipe that pairs the greens with toasted sesame oil and soy sauce. Just be sure not to overcook them! And it’s the fresh local ingredients that really make these dishes shine.
Finally Foraged for Stinging Nettles
Stinging Nettles (not to be confused with wild blackberry leaves) from Willamette Park
Spaghetti carbonara with nettles
Who would have thought that something potentially harmful would be edible? Yes, stinging nettles sting, like mild poison ivy, but when cooked, they have an herbacous, spinach-like taste and consistency. Spinach has a sweeter and more complex flavor, but when Mother Nature offers up such bounty for free, I’m always up for trying it. Foraging rules! Just don’t pick them when they’re going to seed, as I almost did today.
Also, don’t mistake them for wild blackberry vines. It’s easy to do. At least that’s not a lethal mistake. Chef Intaba pointed the nettles out to me in Willamette Park this afternoon. They have two opposition leaves (rather than the blackberry’s three and look very similar to lemon balm.
We cooked the soaked nettles into our spaghetti carbonara, made with house-cured bacon from a half a pig Intaba just butchered herself. Instead of parmesan, we dusted the pasta with the sharp aged and local Willamette Valley Cheese Co. Brindisi. We topped our salad with Intaba’s house-smoked pecans and frizzled leeks and edible pansies, redolent of wintergreen, that I didn’t even realize I had in my garden.
Intaba's bacon
Pansy salad
The meal provided nice closure to a Memorial Day of wine-tasting at Chateau Lorane just south of Eugene. The Willamette Valley’s big wine tasting weekends center around Memorial Day and Thanksgiving. I really fell for Lorrane’s Baco Noir, more rich than any pinot I’ve had. All the other wines seemed like water next to this voluptuous Baco, which painted the glass with deep purple. I only know the difference between good and bad with wine. But with this one, I could sense there was something special going on.
And be sure to stop at Our Daily Bread bakery and restaurant in Fern Ridge on Highway 99W between Corvallis and Eugene.They make a mean marionberry scone.
Dining Al Fresco
Our yard and cut flowers from the garden
We finally dined al fresco at home tonight, on our new recyclable resin (ie. cheap) table and chairs from Bi-Mart. Don’t let its small Wal-Mart appearance deceive you. This worker-owned store is a wonder of the Pacific Northwest. Bi-Mart is where I purchased my shellfish digging license, got waterproof boots, the lawn furniture and supplies with which to preserve food.
After my recent interview with Ivy Manning, I keep turning to her Farm to Table cookbook for inspiration. We made her refreshingly zesty Watercress, Snow Pea and Shitake Mushroom Stir-Fry. I substituted peppery mustard greens for the watercress (since they both have bite) and added tofu to make for a more substantial meal. We also had a springy salad and served the brothy dish over short-grain rice studded with millet, a trick I learned from Chef Naoko. Our friends brought a growler of oatmeal stout from local microbrewery Block 15 to chase down the meal. (Note to self: take advantage of Block 15’s special Sunday $7 growler refill rate). Then rhubarb bread, coconut ice cream and “blueberry teas” for dessert (a McMenamin’s-inspired concoction of Amaretto, Grand Marnier and hot Earl Grey tea…which is surprisingly evocative of the fruit). Ah, spring.
Mustard Greens, Shitake, Snap Pea and Tofu Stir-Fry
Still Revved Up For Rhubarb
Rhubarb syrup
Rhubarb bread
Just can’t get enough of that astringent yet oh so sweet, ruby red rhubarb. It’s a tonic old souls swear by, and so I’m freezing a big bag of it and cooking up a storm with the scarlet stalks. You’ve got to make rhubarb spritzers, and with or without alcohol, they are just as intensely refreshing.
Rhubarb spritzer
Then Dan reminded about the rhubarb bread I made once from a recipe I clipped from The Sun’s food section. But so many recipes got misplaced in the move. I’m still working on a recipe archiving system. Which ones are bookmarked on Delicious? Which ones are hard copies? So I settled on this rhubarb bread recipe I found online instead. It didn’t disappoint, though I wish I’d chopped my rhubarb a bit more finely. I substituted hazelnuts for the walnuts, adding nutmeg and cardamom and diced crystallized ginger on top. All those aromatic pie spices really complement rhubarb’s tangy flavor.
Third KBOO Radio Show: Local Foods Special
I’m just loving my adventures in Radio-land. I’m still in awe that such distinguished food folks have agreed to come on the show. Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Portland-based chef and food writer Ivy Manning, whose Farm to Table cookbook is one of my new favorites. Click here to listen to the archived show.
Our local foods special also featured an interview with the Portland Farmers Market director on expanding access through the new Sunday King neighborhood market. We also talked to local chain Burgerville about their campaign to highlight local (but not organic) foods on their menu. After the show, I got a chance to taste firsthand the Yakima, Wash.,-grown asparagus Burgerville is promoting this month. It was delicately fried, tempera-style, and served with a garlic mayonnaise dipping sauce. But the Burgerville promotion also includes an asparagus and tomato melt sandwich on the menu. Doesn’t that less than local tomato cancel the asparagus out? The Burgerville COO said their tomatoes are from California but could some be produced under sub-slavery conditions in Immokalee, Fla.? Could enough Burgerville customers say no to out-of-season tomatoes to make the company change their policies?
Burgerville Fried Asparagus/Flickr Creative Commons/By kthread
Herb Flower Vinegar
We'll see how this infusion tastes in a month.
Hat tip to Culinaria Eugenius for reminding me to make my own herb flower vinegar before it’s too late. I immersed trimmings from flowering rosemary, thyme, chives and sage plants, plus some dill and lemon peel, in a white wine vinegar bath. Make sure to use a jar with a non-reactive, non-metal cap. The vinegar sits at least a month in a cool, dark place and then it’s ready to use.
I’ll be learning more techniques on flavoring vinegars and oils in my Master Food Preservation class later this month.
I’d really like to make a pure French-style tarragon vinegar, but the tarragon start I planted is rather puny. Mom used use it in a (Silver Palate, I think) tarragon chicken salad she often made. Any suggestions on how to promote more vibrant growth? What keeps tarragon happy?
My slow-to-grow tarragon plant.
Lamb Meatballs Redux
We had ground lamb in the freezer from Bald Hill Farm just down the road. So I recreated the sesame-crusted meatballs we feasted on last week. Take a pound of ground lamb, chop lots of mint, parsley, dried figs and green garlic, beat in an egg and grate in orange zest. Serve with a minted yogurt sauce. Here’s a version of the recipe from Gourmet Magazine here. They were aromatic, crunchy yet moist on the inside. But Dan still prefers his lambs in stews or more saucy, curry-like creations.
Digging Clams: From Sandy Spade to Chowder Bowl
Bill Lackner, leading a clam clinic on Siletz Bay in Lincoln City Wednesday.
Our bountiful harvest of purple varnish and Eastern softshell (think Maine steamers) clams.
I am officially obsessed with foraging for food. And there are boundless opportunities to do it here. So when invited to try my hand at digging for clams on the nearby Oregon coast, of course I leapt at the opportunity. We went out at low tide Wednesday morning on the Siletz Bay just down the road from Mo’s Restaurant (famous for their chowder). Bill Lackner, who founded a local Clam-Diggers Association, was our generous guide. He offers free clinics up and down the coast to promote recreational clamming and ensure that the shellfish are harvested sustainably so all can enjoy them. He quickly demonstrated the technique and then we were off!
Let’s just say clam-digging is immensely easier than foraging for wild mushrooms. If you don’t mind coating yourself with cold, wet sand. You just use a spade or a clam gun to dig about a foot down and then feel your hand all around the perimeter of the whole. Almost every time I found a clam. Instant gratification. Of course, with the cold water, our fingers got numb, making it difficult to feel out the shells as the digging progressed. I also kept cracking the shells with the shovel or gun. It takes finesse not to do so.
Our Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shellfish license entitled us to each collect 36 clams per day. Let’s just say you shouldn’t have a problem meeting that target.
We found mostly hearty purple varnish clams (native to Japan, planted on the Oregon coast in the 1990s) and a few large Eastern softshell, I believe the same species as our beloved, chewy necked steamer clams in Maine. And when life gives you clams, you make chowder. Spicy tomato Manhattan-style is my chowder of choice, which I fondly remember my Bronx-born Nonny would make. The applewood-smoked bacon and the Spanish chorizo I added to the broth really gave this chowder bite. I first made this recipe (see more details below), from Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food, for a review I penned for The Sun. I also threw in caraway seeds to make it like they did on Coney Island.
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The chowder
- Barnacled-encrusted beardy mussels we also found
Manhattan Clam Chowder
- Yield: Serves about 8
No one really knows who made the first clam chowder with tomatoes, the chowder known as Manhattan. New Englanders, mainly those from Massachusetts and Maine, whose chowder is enriched with cream (or evaporated milk in more modern recipes), laugh at the folly of a tomato-flavored chowder. Neighboring Connecticut and Rhode Island, however, states with New England coast credentials as valid as Cape Cod, make chowder without either cream or tomatoes. The traditional Rhode Island chowder is a gray clam broth with nothing more than salt pork, potato, and, interestingly, thyme as the seasoning, the same as New York City’s. Indeed, some Rhode Island chowderheads speculate that Manhattan chowder is really a variant of Rhode Island chowder, the chopped tomatoes a contribution of Rhode Island’s large Italian-American community, most of whom hail from the tomato-rich Italian south. But, there are other theories, too.
Whatever the origin, clam chowder made with tomatoes and thyme was popular in the Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach hotel restaurants of the 1880s to the turn of the century. When Coney Island became the beach resort of the people streaming off the new subway lines in 1921, Manhattan Clam Chowder really took off. (I have also read a few references to caraway being the seasoning in Coney Island Chowder.)
My grandfather, Bernard (Barney) Schwartz was a professional Manhattan Clam Chowder chef. During the Depression, after he had lost his restaurant business, he sold chowder, along with some other bar foods of the day, off a pushcart to bars and grills. I watched him make chowder many times, along with his other specialties—pickles, coleslaw, and potato salad. He always insisted on using really big chowder clams, never Littlenecks or Cherrystones, which he put through the meat grinder. I have tried making chowder with the smaller clams, but Barney was right. The result tastes more like vegetable soup than clam chowder. You need the strong flavor of big clams to make this work.
Ingredients
- 2 dozen large chowder clams, well-washed
- 4 ounces bacon or salt pork, cut into ½-inch pieces
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 medium onions, cut into ¼-inch dice
- 1 medium carrot, cut into ¼-inch dice
- 1 large rib celery, cut into ¼-inch dice
- 1 large green pepper, cut into ¼-inch dice
- 1½ pounds potatoes, cut into ½-inch cubes (about 3 cups)
- 1 (28-ounce) can peeled plum tomatoes, with their juice, the tomatoes coarsely chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 large bay leaf
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Salt to taste
Make a Clamato cocktail with the leftover clam juice!
Directions
In a 5-quart pot, combine the clams and 6 cups of cold water. Cover and place over high heat. When the water begins to boil, uncover the pot and boil the clams until they open, 2 to 3 minutes.
Remove the clams from their shells. Set aside in a large bowl.
Strain the broth through a sieve lined with a few layers of cheesecloth or a tightly woven cloth napkin. Leave behind any sand that may have settled in the pot. You should have slightly less than 8 cups of liquid. Set aside.
Rinse out the 5-quart pot and dry it.
Put the bacon or salt pork in the pot and cook over medium-low heat until some of the fat has rendered and the meat has lost its raw color.
Add the diced onion, carrot, celery, and green pepper. Toss well, then cook over medium heat until the vegetables are well wilted, 10 to 12 minutes.
Add the potatoes and the reserved and strained clam broth. Bring to a boil, then adjust heat so broth just simmers. Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.
Add the chopped tomatoes, the thyme, and the bay leaf. Continue to simmer another 30 minutes or so, until the vegetables are very tender.
Meanwhile, push the clams through the medium blade of a meat grinder, or finely chop them in a food processor.
When the chowder has cooked for half an hour, add the clams, then shut off the heat.
Add freshly ground pepper to taste. Correct the salt—the chowder may not need any because clams are salty, and the tomatoes have salt, but usually it does.
The chowder is much better when it is allowed to stand for several hours, or refrigerated overnight, then gently reheated just to the simmering point.
Cougars in Corvallis
Cougar/Flickr Creative Commons/By ucumari
Yikes! A ferocious cougar was spotted mauling a house cat right here in Corvallis last month. Once hunted to extinction, it seems record numbers of the giant cats live in Oregon these days. Now a young college student has mobilized to save the spotted cougar’s life here. If one crosses my path, I just hope it’s at a safe distance.
It’s pretty surreal to be living in proximity to such a feral beast, which mostly seemed a mythical creature as our school mascot. The closest we got to seeing a real cougar growing up was the stuffed, glass-encased one in the gym.
Lamb Meatballs, Part Deux
Lamb meatballs, jambalaya and portabello mushrooms/soba noodle sautee
Wondering what to do with that ball of ground lamb in your freezer? I had almost forgotten about sweet, Morrocan-inspired lamb meatballs. At a potluck tonight, our host served white and black sesame seed-coated ones with chopped figs, nutmeg and fresh mint in the mix, served with a yogurt sauce. They were more subtle than the citrusy prune ones I made last fall. You always learn new kitchen tricks at a shared meal.
The home in Southtown Corvallis also has a chicken coop and numerous well-crafted raised beds of vegetables. They’ve staked their early-planted tomatoes with plastic hoops so they can cover the vulnerable nightshades to keep them warm on these still chilly nights. I’ve just been leaving my tomato starts out on the deck. Hopefully they survive.
BaltimOregon to Maine 