Posts Tagged ‘KBOO’
Corned Beef
My corned beef: a less appetizing shade of grey, but still just as delicious.
I need to get my bloggy self back into gear! Please excuse the hiatus! I’ve been churning out stories for KLCC in Eugene and preparing to teach community college again.
Thankfully, today I got to return to my passion for food with a KBOO special St. Paddy’s Day episode on corned beef. Two excellent guests joined us for the discussion. Ken Gordon, of Kenny & Zuke’s Delicatessen, joined us in-studio, and food writer (and Portland native) Matthew Amster-Burton called in from Seattle. His new Spilled Milk podcast recently addressed this topic. We even got to indulge in luscious corned beef and rye sandwiches on-air. We’ll post the audio soon.
To prepare for the show, I brined my own brisket to make my first corned beef ever. I got a small 2lb. brisket from Deck Family Farms through Corvallis Local Foods. For the brine, I used the recipe Matthew Amster-Burton recommended. But I didn’t have the hours to slow-braise he called for. So I boiled it in stout and then added tons of root vegetables (potatoes, parsnips, carrots, celeriac and rutabaga) and cabbage and onions, as The Oregonian recommended. The tender sliced brisket was delicious with Weinsteiger horseradish mustard and the freshly ground prepared horseradish my friend Rebecka made. I hope corning my own brisket becomes an annual tradition. I love how effortless curing and fermenting is. Maximum taste from just slathering on a salt/spice rub and letting it sit.
Nitrates, or curing salts, keep the meat pink. (courtesy of seriouslygood.kdweeks.com/2006/01/corned-beef.html /Flickr Creative Commons)
Figs and Quince
Foraged figs.
Thankfully, I recovered from that unfortunate foraging experience. I’m certainly not ready to swear all scavenging off. Maybe I should stick to fruit, like these beautiful figs that drop on the sidewalk and into the street just around the corner from us. They must be a neglected student house, because the inhabitants don’t seem so interested in picking the fruit. They aren’t the sweetest, ruby red-inside black Mission figs, but in a paper bag, these ripened nicely enough.
Broiled figs with fennel.
I broiled some of them with fennel seeds for a hearty arugula salad recipe I found in The Spice Bible, which I reviewed a while back for The Sun. The recipe called for first slathering quince paste on a pork tenderloin and then broiling it. (If you don’t have membrillo, you could substitute another paste, chutney or jam.) Then you broil the fennel-crusted figs and toss both with arugula, in a light balsamic-olive oil vinaigrette. I had plenty of quince paste on hand from cooking for my Kitchen Window piece which runs Nov. 11. Speaking of quince, much of our October KBOO Food Show focused on the beguiling fruit.
And speaking of quince, we stewed some in to tarten up the applesauce I canned with a neighborhood group yesterday.
And speaking of quinces and figs, it appears there is even a new cookbook devoted to these sensuous, perfume-laden Persian fruits.
Apple-quince sauce.
Quince, Pork Tenderloin, Fennel-crusted Broiled Fig Salad on Arugula.
Apple Blackberry (and Quince) Pie, from Rustic Fruit Desserts
Apple Blackberry (and Quince) Pie
Local quinces, including ones that are apparently edible raw.
This is a brilliant pie because it bridges the seasons, melding tart, jammy berries with crisp, fragrant apples. I also added quince slices to the mix, because the astringent fruit gains a wonderful rosey pear-like flavor when cooked with sugar. I’d never come across quinces before moving here to the Pacific Northwest, where we even haven them growing on the neighbor’s tree down the road. The USDA genebank here in Corvallis is home to North America’s perhaps most diverse quince collection.
Making and rolling out your own pie crust is always a patshkie, but at least this all-butter recipe made four discs, so we had two leftover to freeze. We also didn’t dock the dough (prick it with a fork) before pouring in the filling. The crust was flakey and delicious but not quite crisp enough. Maybe pre-bake it a bit first? This pie crust tutorial video helps you beef up your technique.
Fresh out of the oven.
The pie recipe comes from Rustic Fruit Desserts, published by Portland chef Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson of the Baker & Spice Bakery there. Cory recommended the recipe when he came on our KBOO Food Show Wednesday. For our School Lunch Special, Schreiber also spoke about the challenges of his work as farm-to-school coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Fourth KBOO Radio Show: Food, Inc. and Jamming
My latest KBOO food show is up. Click here to stream. My co-host Miriam Widman and I attended a special screening of Food, Inc. the night before the show to prepare. I really recommend it, though the documentary tries to cover a dizzying array of topics in 90-some minutes. Now I’m brain dead from that and my last day of food preservation class today. Here’s the press release we sent out for the show:
The season of bounty (ripe strawberries, shelling peas, cherries) is upon us. But you may lose your appetite after seeing Food, Inc., the new documentary that exposes how industrial agriculture has tainted our food supply. You’ll never care to eat Smithfield pork, Tyson chicken or transgenic high-fructose corn syrup again! All the more reason to grow and preserve your own food. And with the Pacific Northwest’s abundance of berries, now is the time to jam.
- An interview with Elise Pearlstein, producer of the new documentary Food, Inc.
- The “Jamming for the Hungry” program, where Corvallis and Philomath volunteers turn gleaned fruit into low-sugar jams and jellies for local food banks.
- An interview with local cookbook author Linda Ziedrich, on tips and recipes from her newly published The Joys of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves.
- Canning jams and fruits with the Oregon State University Extension Service’s master food preserver program.
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
Oregon Radio Debut: The KBOO Food Show
Portland chef Naomi Pomeroy, of Beast bistro, featured in Meatpaper's Spring 2009 "Pig" issue (Photo by Alicia J. Rose /Flickr Creative Commons)
(Click here to hear the archived show.)
I love the power of the unadorned human voice. And so I increasingly find myself gravitating towards radio, perhaps our most enduring, flexible and irrepressible forms of media that continues to thrive in this digital age. I spent two nights blindly fumbling through Pro Tools to sloppily edit my first produced radio piece on the new Emergency Food Pantry on-campus here at Oregon State. It will debut tomorrow during my second time co-hosting the monthly KBOO Food Show! Join me:
BaltimOregon to Maine 