Trendy Springtime Eating: Ramps, Sorrel, Rhubarb!

My take from this afternoon's Farmers' Market:

• Fiddleheads
• Chives
• Shallots
• Sauerkraut
  
• Sorrel
• Rhubarb
• Catnip
• Flowers

I knew I wanted to do something with the sorrel. Some recipes for sorrel "pesto" over here looked good, so I made one from a bag of sorrel from L & A Farms, 5 or 6 ramps from Rosemont Market & Bakery, a dozen chives from Thirty Acre Farms, a couple handfuls of pine nuts and about 1/3 of a cup of olive oil.


Things I learned: a salad spinner works really well to dry steamed or washed fiddleheads so they can be sauteéd. I guess that should have been obvious to me before now.

Also: we're working on an excellent rhubarb crisp. Tonight's breakthrough was adding Grand Marnier and ginger juice. Next job is to get the right amount of crisp to rhubarb.

The "Food Blog Code of Ethics"

Oh, for crying out loud...

It Is Surprising How Often Julia Child Is Cited By Legal Scholars

My favorite usage is one I found accidentally several years ago:

Suddenly, [a substantive element,] or a process, or a time sequence will turn up, and there is astonishment, frustration, and even disaster. We therefore urge you … always to read the [Constitution] first, even if [its application] is familiar to you. Visualize each step … and you will encounter no surprises. [Constitutional] language is always a sort of shorthand in which a lot of information is packed, and you will have to read carefully if you are not to miss small but important points. Then, to build up your over-all knowledge compare the [text] mentally to others you are familiar with, and note where one [section] or technique fits into the larger picture of theme and variations.

Sarnoff, Joshua D., Cooperative Federalism, The Delegation Of Federal Power, And The Constitution, 39 Ariz. L. Rev. 205 (1997) (quoting Julia Child et al., 1 Mastering the Art of French Cooking x (1979)).

Pseudo-French Night, Take Two: Two Angry, Tacky Whiting and a Fricassée of Chicken in Cognac

One of the spots where I like to eat lunch outside during the summer is by the empty forty ouncer bottles on the granite blocks right behind Harbor Fish. The danger is being shat upon by herring gulls; the benefit is checking out what's available at the market.

[By lumierfl.]

Two whiting cost me all of $2.53. I want to stay away from the more overfished species and figured I had done so with whiting, but it turns not to be the most sustainably harvested fish afterall. In any event, here's the tacky 1970's-ish thing I did with it:


Merlan en Colère (a/k/a Whiting "Angry Style")
Adapted from Jacques Pepin, La Methode (1979)

Simply whiting battered with egg, one tablespoon of oil and some seasoning and then breaded and fried with their tails stuffed into their mouths. It took about 8 minutes in 350° safflower oil to cook them. Someone who knew what they were doing might even manage not to overdarken the batter. I had never had whiting before, which, turns out to be an excellent white fish that is mild in flavor and not overly bony like many of the small, skinny fish.


In our most recent Crown of Maine order I picked up a broiler from Tide Mill Farm of Edmund, Maine (and not Smyrna as I had originally thought (thanks, Psst!)). Although it was a fine bird, I think I'll be stick with Maine-ly Poultry whose chickens are available fresh. Also, Maine-ly Poultry doesn't cut the skin across the lower part of the breast to tuck the drumsticks into. The fricassée above was made by soaking the chicken pieces in one cup of cognac overnight and then draining the pieces, browning them with lardons, and cooking them slowly for half an hour with pearl onions and the reserved chicken-cognac brew. The sauce was excellent, but soaking the pieces in cognac overnight was a blunder; the chicken tasted like licking in the inside of a charred barrel. I'd give them six hours if I were ever to do this again. The idea is from Anne Willan's excellent French Regional Cooking.


Leftovers!

The cognac flavor really mellowed overnight and the left over chicken made great sandwiches with bacon from Caldwell Farm, cornichons, tomatoes, avocado and mayonnaise.

G(R)Oing Nuts for Smoothies

Nutty smoothies inspired by those on the menu at the hipster vegan dive, GRO, and currently heavily in vogue at home with my daughter:

• Sleeping Beauty Needs Calcium: 1/2 cu. coconut milk, 1/2 cu. almond milk, a handful of sliced almonds => WHIRR! => 1 banana (sliced and frozen), 1/4 cu. cacao powder, 1 additional cu. or so of almond milk, agave nectar, maybe some crushed ice => WHIRR!;
• Eiiiiieeeee: 1/2 cu. coconut milk, 1/2 cu. almond milk, a handful of pecans => WHIRR! => 1 banana (sliced and frozen), some maple syrup, more almond milk, cacao powder, maybe some crushed ice => WHIRR! (without the ice and with more maple syrup, this would make a great base for a vegan ice cream); and
  
• Space Donkey: 1/2 cu. coconut milk, 1/2 cu. soy or almond milk, lots of of pistachios => WHIRR! => 1 banana (sliced and frozen), 1 cara cara orange (rind and membrane cut away, segmented), more soy or almond milk, honey => WHIRR! (this one is the best).

[Names provided by my daughter.]

Courgette Sounds Cooler Than Zucchini

Simple dinner last night: zucchini omelette and baby artichokes with lemon vinaigrette.

Pseudo-French Night: Braised Chicken, Walnut Salad, Mussels and Roasted Fingerlings

So my mostly vegetarian recipe blog has gradually turned into a fully omnivorous slow food blog. I blame it on all the great local ingredients I have been discovering. It's time for the pendulum to swing back to the veggies again, but not before one more omnivorous post to relate a nice dinner we had this past weekend.

Ever since becoming addicted to Maine-ly Poulty's chicken, I have been interested in attempting (and "attempting" is the key word here) some of the classic french methods for preparing poultry. The poele from a few weeks back turned out so nicely that I thought I would give braising a try. It's hard to get a really pretty end result with either of these methods—or at least it is for me—but the meat turns out so tender and moist and the sauce so flavorful that presentation seems less important. Still, it would have been nice to get an even browning of the skin all over the bird. Next up: perhaps a fricassee.

We had: braised chicken from Maine-ly Poultry stuffed with olives and ham and sausage from Rosemont Market and Bakery; roasted fingerling potatoes from Goranson Farm with garlic and thyme; a salad of toasted walnuts, garlicky croûtes and some beautiful greens (also from Goranson Farm) with a vinaigrette of cider vinegar, dijon and walnut oil; and mussels from Phil Gray's Blue Dragon Mussel Wagon.

Braised Chicken Stuffed With Sausage and Olives
Adapted from Anne Willan, Regional French Cooking (1981)

• 1 whole chicken (around 3 lbs.), together with its liver, heart and gizzard (dice the heart and gizzard, dice the liver too, but keep it separate);
• 3 oz. of salami, diced [Rosemont has some of the best charcuterie in the area, …];
• 3 oz. ham, diced [… such as an excellent french ham that fits this recipe.];
• a handful of pitted green olives;
• some chopped fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, whatever);
  
• 2 – 3 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped;
  
• 2½ cu. chicken stock (hopefully your own stock prepared without adding any salt, or some low sodium stock—things get awfully salty with those olive and the salami); and
  
• oil (or some kind of fat) for browning the chicken and sautéeing its stuffing.
  

First, make the stuffing. Sauté the ham, salami, gizzard and heart in some oil over medium high heat for 5 minutes. Add the liver and sauté a minute longer. Mix the sautéed meats together with the garlic, olives, herbs and season with pepper (but not salt, the stuffing is already very salty).

Stuff the bird, truss it and season its skin with pepper and sparingly with salt. Brown the chicken on all sides in a casserole capable of fitting the whole bird lying on its side and still allowing its cover to close firmly. Position the chicken on its side and add two Tbs. of the stock, then cover and cook over low heat for 15 minutes. Cook the chicken on the other side, then breast side down, then on its back, each time adding 2 Tbs. of stock and covering and cooking over low heat for 15 minutes, for a total cooking time of about an hour.

Once the chicken is cooked, remove it to a platter, remove the trussing and cover with foil. Now make the sauce by skimming off any extra fat off the top of the liquid in the casserole. I had a gooey bubbling chickeny syrup that was un-skimmable, but ended up forming one of the best sauces ever. Add a cup or so of broth to the casserole and reduce to a sauce. Given the stuffing, the sauce is likely to be a bit salty, but the stuffing adds a wonderful flavor to it.

Mussels With Shallots, Tomatoes, Anchovies and Thyme
This is pretty standard stuff. When prepared with butter it is my absolute favorite way to eat mussels (although serving them in a curry with coconut milk and lemongrass is a close second).

• 2 lbs. mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded;
• 1 large shallot, finely diced;
• 4 – 5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped;
• 2 tomatoes, peels and seeds removed, diced;
• 3 – 4 anchovies;
• 1 cup white wine (or thereabout);
• some fresh thyme, chopped; and
• lots of butter if you can eat it, otherwise some olive oil.
  

The ingredients pretty much speak for themselves. Heat the oil and sauté first the shallots, then the garlic. Add the anchovies, thyme sauté a few moments longer. Add the mussels, tomatoes and wine, then cover and cook over a high heat until the mussels open up (don't eat any that don't open up, of course). Remove the mussels with a slotted spoon to a serving dish. Cook down the sauce a bit and then pour it over the mussels.

The traditional french way to do this, apparently, is "moules mariniére," in which you simply put mussels, shallots, herbs, salt, pepper and wine in a pot and let it boil until their done.

Leftovers: Chicken with Tonnato (Tuna Mayo)

I ate the leftover chicken with a tonnato sauce, which I like to put on, well, pretty much everything, but especially poached chicken. I would probably drink tonnato if there weren't some part of my small brain that recognizes just how creepy and unnatural that would be (although not nearly as disturbing as this).

Into a mini food processor goes:

• one can of tuna and its oil;
• 6 – 8 anchovies and some oil from their tin;
• an egg yolk;
• 2 tsp. of dijon mustard;
• 2 Tbs. of lemon juice;
• 1 Tbs. capers; and
  
• some ground pepper.

Whir it up, streaming in 1/2 cup of olive oil. If you need to loosen it, add more lemon juice. A lot of people make this with prepared mayonnaise, but the result is not as good and you're not saving yourself and real effort by doing so.

Trendy Springtime Eating, Part Three: Spring Dug Parsnips

After two recent bouts with the stomach flu, I'm a bit behind on my trendy springtime eating. Spring dug parsnips have been here since nearly the beginning of the month. Some recent enjoyment was had with:

• A mash of parsnips, potatoes and cauliflower with soy milk and that stuff that is not butter but damn well tastes like it (Earth Balance), served with a chicken from Mainely Poultry cooked in a casserole, its skimmed juices reduced with port and then thickened with flour and enriched with the chicken's liver (that was really good, by the way);
  
• Roasted parsnips and pears with thyme and lemon olive oil, served with roasted, brined pork chops from Nezinscot Farms; and
• An excellent soup of potato, parsnip and apples.
  

An epic fail was achieved with some silly experimentation involving pureed parsnips, grated ginger, lemon zest (the principal error), soymilk, sliced almonds and eggs baked as a sort of dairy free gratin. Blech! In the process, however, I discovered that a straight up puree of parsnips with grated ginger works with minimal additional adulteration.

Dining in the Commons: My Food Show Elevator Pitch

If I had lots of time and money I'd produce a show that was …

… one half Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's A Cook on the Wild Side …


… one half Professor Richard Judd's Common Lands, Common People …

… one half Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Stalking the Blue Eyed Scallop …


… and one half Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus.

While that may seem like several halves too many, I think it would all hold together. I'd drive around Maine in a Toyota Land Cruiser, fishing, fowling, foraging, hunter-and-gathering and otherwise collecting free ingredients from great ponds, salt marshes, rivers, forests and the Gulf of Maine. Then—because I'm too much of an amateur hack to do it myself—I'd take my finds to local chefs to prepare in interesting ways. We'd eat alewives and elvers and sea lettuce and wild mushrooms and herbs and everything in between. Along the way I'd talk about our common rights to public resources and how our access to those resources and our knowledge of how to use them are slowly dwindling. But I'd also find a bunch of people who are keeping old food traditions alive or who are importing and forming interesting new ones. I'd release the whole series over the web under a creative commons license.

Anyone have a camera crew, a land cruiser and lots of spare time they want to lend me?

Blog or Bartend?

"Blog or bartend?" Apparently the answer is tend bar, if there were any doubt. But are those the only choices!? The post's title reminds me of a girl I saw in court a few years ago who explained to the judge that she had to "strip or deal." There was no third alternative so you really couldn't blame her for moving product on the streets on account of she had self respect. At the time she made this argument she was wearing a shirt with the words "Got penis?" on it.