Archive for July 28, 2008

28 Jul 2008
Cookery • locavore log

A Lamb Feast

As laughter and murmurs of animated conversation drifted from the terrace with view of the Blue Ridge Mountains into the kitchen (where I, the chef, was putting finishing touches on the dessert plates) and as guests raised their glass for a toast shortly after sunset, I knew that dinner was a success. One can never be sure.

What makes a great dinner is always an interesting study. Everything must come together and there is not necessarily one formula by which to abide. Many different people in very many different circumstances have pulled together very successful affairs, having contrived to get that “magic” to work. On Sunday, the hostess certainly did that: she put together an interesting and varied guest list; she set a beautiful table in a very enticing setting; she provided great food (if I may say so, since my partner and I were cooking), and most importantly she made all her guests – not just the guest of honor – feel wanted, welcome and special.

First, she set up a 30-ft long table on the terrace (there were after all 32 guests), dressed it with vintage cotton linens, assorted china and pottery, and fresh flowers that she had just picked. It looks at once refined and casual – perfect for a country diner. She and I (the hired chef) cooperated on a menu with a Mediterranean feel but firmly rooted in the Northern Piedmont: many of our ingredients were sourced in Rappahannock County. The “pièce de resistance” was a lamb mechoui (a lamb, stuffed with herbs, and slowly spit-roasted on an outdoor fire) that my partner cooked for most of the afternoon. It was brought from the fire pit onto a side table and carved in front of the dinners. That little drama added to the sense of expectation that had build up during the cocktail hour when guests were able to go and watch the lamb being cooked over the newly dug pit, while sipping on Spirited Lemonade and munching on freshly baked pissaladière (a Provençal onion, anchovies & olive tart), stuffed grape leaves and tapenade.

Lamb mechoui

The buffet, set up inside in the great room that opens onto the terrace, used colorful platters and bowls containing ratatouille (the real one, made traditionally by cooking each vegetable separately before gently folding them together for a long slow cooking in the oven, melding all the vegetable and herb flavors together sumptuously); couscous salad with dry cranberries, cucumber & mint; a fennel, watercress and cherry tomato salad; roasted rosemary lemon chicken (in case some guests did not eat lamb); and bread, freshly baked in the outdoor fire pit using Dutch ovens. The lamb came from Touchstone Farm, in Amissville; the chicken were from Belle Meade in Sperryville. The vegetables and herbs were from Sunnyside Farms, in Washington, VA, Waterpenny in Sperryville and Laughing Duck Gardens kitchen gardens as well as from the hostess small but productive vegetable garden. For dessert, I made fresh peach ice-cream served with prettily arranged lemon verbena poached peaches and cookies. The peaches were from Roy’s Orchard in Sperryville and Williams Orchard in Flint Hill.

What a way to start the week: cooking for this 32-people mechoui sunset feast, using beautiful local ingredients from small farms and orchard around us.

I will say nothing of the cleaning up afterwards…

sylvie | No comments
25 Jul 2008
Cookery • Desserts • fruit • Fruit recipe • locavore log

Not Yet Peached Out

A bowl of peachesI promised more peach recipes. If “recipe” is the word to use. You got to do a lot of things – fast – when you got a bushel (close to 60 pounds!) of peaches.

Perfectly ripe fruit call for a very simple treatment. Why mess up with pure goodness? Some nice dough, a sprinkling of sugar, a dash of spices. Voila!

This “recipe”for rustic summer fruit tart works with peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums. Picture #1 shows 3 unbaked Rustic Tart, 2 plums & 1 peach; picture # 2 shows baked Rustic Peach Tarts.

Three assemled tart waiting to be baked

Ingredients

  • frozen puff pastry (Or fresh, if you make it. I have not quite been successful at puff pastry and will admit to buy it – unbaked and frozen). Frozen puff is what I’ve got on the freezer right now, so that’s what I use.
  • ripe peaches, pitted and sliced (I don’t bother to peel – although I do wash – but go ahead and peel if you must)
  • sugar
  • vanilla powder

Thaw puff pastry. Roll out thinly on a floured surface.

Cut each sheet in rectangle – any size, does not matter. In the picture, I cut up a 3-fold pastry sheet rectangle in 3, giving me 3 small-ish rectangular tarts.

Put dough on parchment paper on cookie sheet. The parchment paper – while optional – prevents sticking and makes it easier to remove the baked tart without tearing the bottom.

Arrange sliced fruit on top, leaving enough edge to fold the pastry on the fruit. See first picture. Crimp, pinch etc as necessary to ensure the pastry wraps well up the fruit to hold the filling in place during cooking. You can see on the 2nd picture, in the middle tart the dough was not wrapping the fruit well enough so some juice escaped during baking

Sprinkle one or two tablespoons of sugar and a dash of vanilla powder on fruit.

Bake in a preheated 400 F oven. 20 minutes or until done (i.e until the pastry is puffed up and golden, with slightly browned edges)

That’s it! Pretty, tasty, easy. Fast enough to make just about any week night…

Rustic Peach tart

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23 Jul 2008
fruit • Harvest • locavore log • Wild Food

Food from the Hedgerow

Wineberries ripening

It rained all through last night and today – something we haven’t had in a long time. The creek which had become so low I could not hear it from the house (but unlike last year, it has not dried out completely – at least not yet) is singing again. So of course, I did not weed the upper vegetable garden which already was a jungle (I know that when I am able to get to it, I will need a machete). Instead of weeding, I did paperwork and admin stuff and data entry and writing and all those other things that kept me indoor.

Still… I was keeping out an appreciative ear for the rain on the metal roof. Such a nice rain too, slow with an occasional shower and no wind. Oh how is the garden liking this! (me too, at least right then, no need to water). All of that to say that by mid-afternoon I was getting pretty restless. Yeah, I know all that other stuff needs to be done, especially when one is running a small business and trying to keep things under control. Nonetheless, I was getting restless. So when the weather let up for a while, I went wild berry picking. Since I was going to freeze them and cook them right away, it did not matter that they were wet from the rain.

Wild berry picking is a little expedition.

First, you get the berry baskets: they are not too big (about a quart) because you don’t want the bottom berries to get all squashed and 4 of them fit within a much bigger basket with a large comfortable handle.

Then you get the picking basket, which has no “proper” handle but two ear-like small handles that you use to loop the basket on your belt, leaving both your hands free. Even better, if you put your belt on loose enough, the basket nestles against your tummy giving you extra protection from thorny branches in front as you push – or attempt to push – your way through the brambles, and does not spill out even as you bend down. Trust me, it’s pretty bad to spill your basket of berries after you spent a sweaty and thorny hour picking it.

And you want to dress appropriately. Read more

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21 Jul 2008
Cookery • fruit • Fruit recipe • locavore log

Very Cool Peaches

The lovely peach originates from China, although as its botanical name (Prunus persica) indicates Europeans thought – in the 18th century – that it came from Persia. Peaches seemed to have been introduced to Southern Europe via the Silk Road in Antiquity. They were brought by the Spaniards to the Americas where adopted by a number of Indian tribes at least in North America. A Wikipedia map shows that peaches are also cultivated in the temperate areas of South America.

Freshly made white peach sorbetTheir adoption by many peoples is no wonder as a ripe peach is a gift from God. I certainly thought so this week-end as I was going through the bushel of peaches I bought Friday – almost dizzy with their heady scent. It was hot this week-end, so I wanted to minimize cooking indoor. One perfect way to use those fragrant sun-charged wonders is to make Peach Sorbet. Read more

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19 Jul 2008
beverage • Cookery • Fruit recipe • locavore log

An Orgy of Peaches

This is going to be a good summer for peaches.

A bushel of peachesTwo local orchards I already hit had early peaches in the 2nd week of July. A third said the rain was having them push harvesting by a few days, but that peaches should be coming strong after the 15th. And they did! On Friday, I picked up a bushel of peaches – some white, some yellow – at Moore’s Orchard on Fodderstack Road between Sperryville and Washington, VA. As I walked into the packing shed, the sensuous scent of ripe peaches hits me, sweet and smooth and then wraps itself around me. Later, as I was driving home, loaded with my bounty, the fragrance of ripe peaches pervaded my small car and drifted out through the open window, making me dreamy. Can one get high of the scent of ripe peaches?

At the orchard, Dorothy Moore helped me pack my bushel (bring your own containers) and charged me only $18 (instead of the regular $24) because many of the peaches were “seconds”. Look at the picture above and how many peaches that is! As it turns out, that’s over 56 pounds – or $0.32 per pound. A win-win situation: I am having freshly picked ripe peaches at an incredible price and supporting a local farmer. Yes, the “seconds” were a little bruised, but they are fine for what I want to make with them: compote, sauce & purée – all to be frozen or canned for winter use. Some of the unblemished peaches will be halved, pitted and frozen for cobblers, pies, smoothies and the likes – also for cold weather use… well maybe nor the smoothies. Others will go into sorbets & ice-cream. A few will be eaten out of hand or grilled or baked into a rustic tart (not too much baking – it is HOT). Finally several pounds already found their way into peach liqueur and peach vinegar.

I am having a peach orgy. I hope to have many more this summer as this promises to be a good peach summer. Lots of ways to eat them. Today I will write down the recipe for Homemade Peach Liqueur, a distillation of summer to be sipped joyfully at Thanksgiving, gratefully on a cold winter evening or expectantly in the spring. Over the next week or so, I will be posting more peach recipes. Read more

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17 Jul 2008
beverage • Cookery • fruit • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Wild Food

Ruby Lemonade

A glass of blackberry lemonadeI don’t like to throw out (I mean compost) food – even things that other people may not see as still edible.

I went wild berry picking earlier in the week (that’ll make a post fo another day) and decided to make a sorbet with some of the wild blackberries I picked. (By the way, if you ever wonder why berries seem so expensive, go pick some, and you’ll get a much better understanding of that price…)

The wild blackberries have a lot of seeds, so I strain the puree before mixing it with my syrup. But although I tried to squeeze as much pulp as I could (getting purple hands and a new color pattern on my apron in the process) there was still too much pulp left for me to throw those seeds in the compost without a vague guilt feeling.

I had lemons left. We had Spirited Lemonade over the week-end as well as marinated lemon chicken. Sooo… How about blackberry lemonade?

I put water in a bowl, drop the whole seed mass in there, swish them around, strained again, and voila! blackberry wash! Then I squeezed a few lemons, use the blackberry wash instead of water, sugar to taste (not too much: maybe 2 tablespoon for the quart I was making, as I prefer my lemonade tart), and we had a beautifully ruby-colored lemonade, tasting of both lemon and wild blackberries.

Locavore log: blackberries from the hedgerow

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15 Jul 2008
Appetizer • Cookery • Fruit recipe • herb • herb recipe • Kitchen Garden • locavore log

Of Summer Melon, Virginia Ham & Combava

Twice this past week-end, I prepared a simple dish combining a few very much local ingredients: easy, lots of flavors, nice colors, great smell, happy eaters… and no need to apply heat: as far as I am concerned, the perfect summer party dish. What was it? Melon & Virginia Country Ham Salad with Combava (Kaffir Lime) Leaf Dressing.

Both times guests were really intrigued by my “secret ingredient” and were trying – unsuccessfully to place it- until I told them what it was: Kaffir lime (aka Combava). The Oxford Companion To Food recommends that the traditional name “Kaffir lime” be replaced by “makhrut lime” or “makrud lime” (makhrut/makrud being the transliteration of the Thai word) because Kaffir is a derogatory term for a black person in South Africa . But very few people do it and Kaffir lime is by far the more common. However I have also seen Combava lime (which is one of its French name). Since I like the deep musical sound of “combava” and the word reminds me of my years in France, that’s the name I’ll be using to describe what is known botanically as Citrus hystrix.

Combava leaves (also known as Kaffir Lime or Makhrut Lime)

Combava is a citrus plant originating in South East Asia, where its leaves are used in cooking. Many people in the US have encountered Combava when eating at Thai restaurants. The leaves are roughly hour-glass shaped, or rather, one leaf looks like two leaves put together end-to-end. The fruit is small, green, round and has very little juice. I grate the rind (that is when I am lucky enough that my tree gives me fruit) and use it to flavor drinks and many dishes; slice the fruit very thinly and mix it with chili peepers, garlic and other spices to make a fresh chutney/salsa to serve with fish and rice. The fruit can also be candied producing an interesting sour/slightly bitter and yet sweet confection – a little like candied pomelo rind. The plant is tender here in the Northern Piedmont (and in most of the US), but as with many citrus, it can live happily in a large pot, that spends the winter in a cool sunny room.

The leaves are what I used for my dish. But although the flavors were similar, the presentation of the dish was not because there were two very different meals. Yes, I know, I am getting to specialize in “obscure leafy ingredients” in the words of David Lebovitz. But it’s easy to grow, you can buy it frozen in markets specializing in South East Asia ingredients and it is really good! By the way, don’t use dry leaves: they have a very different texture, the taste is fainter and they will not give you the appealing bright green flecks that you get with the fresh leaves.

Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags: , , , , ,
10 Jul 2008
Garden • Kitchen Garden • Pests • vegetable

Of Beans Growing

Gardening keeps you humble.

Here you are: pretty proud of yourself, because you’ve been gardening for over twenty years – you’ve even had some pretty good years and raised some unusual plants; you’ve dabbled in all kinds of things; have propagated a lot of your own plants and saved seeds; you are even teaching people how to start or improve their kitchen garden; AND people call you or e-mail you for advice.

The ancient Greeks knew it: Hubris will cause your downfall. Ok, so Nemesis won’t come for me – or so I hope! – but I certainly got what was due to me. A reminder that cockiness has no place in the garden. I got humbled by the humble green bean. Read more

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07 Jul 2008
Cookery • Desserts • Fruit recipe • herb • herb recipe • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Recipes

Lemon Verbena for Summer Fragrance

Lemon Verbena

Lemon Verbena Growing in a Container at Morninside Nursery

A small shrub from South America, lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla) is a delightful plant in the garden. Because it is a tender perennial, I grow two mother plants in pots that come in the house or the greenhouse in winter, and make cuttings every spring that I plant in the garden once they have rooted. It’s amazing how fast they grow once they are planted out: they’ll give me plenty of leaves for all sorts of uses. I have trained my potted plants as topiaries, but in its natural habitat lemon-verbena grows as a multi-branched, airy shrub up to 10 foot tall. In a sheltered dry-in-winter place, I suspect lemon verbena would perennialize in Zone 7: the plant would die down but new shoots would come from the roots in spring. The plant itself looks better in the ground, healthier, darker green and lusher – one does not have too keep watering it as in pots. Last year, I left one of my containers out when the temperature dropped to below 20 degree F several night in the row. The top growth died, but new shoots came from the roots, and the plant is now perfectly healthy – still in it pot. The picture above is a healthy specimen growing in a container at Morningside Farm & Nursery in Griffinsburg, VA.

Close up of lemon verbena leaves

The white flowers are rather small and the sweet lemon fragrance come from the crushed or brushed leaves. Plant it where you can brush against it as you go by – it’s a wonderful, slightly haunting smell. Great for delicately scenting cloth, for pot pourri or for wreaths (the flexible fresh branches are easy to fashion into a wreath that will just dry over a few weeks), it also makes a pleasant tea and is wonderful to make into fragrant syrup to poach fruit. It can also be infused for sorbet, ice-cream, flan, custard etc. I understand that lemon-verbena marries very nicely with fish – something I have not yet tried.

What I have tried – with most delicious results – is to use lemon verbena for sorbet and to poach fruits. It’s particularly wonderful with peaches , and will come handy if you ever face some peaches that are slightly under ripe, that you don’t have time to ripen, and that you must serve now. A quick poaching in lemon verbena syrup will elevate them to another dimension. Using fully ripe peaches will yield commensurably tastier results. Guests are always intrigued by the taste. The two recipes provided below (Lemon-Verbena Poached Peaches and Lemon-Verbena Syrup) are more guidelines than recipes per se. The hardest part will be to locate a lemon verbena plant. I have noted that it’s becoming increasingly easier to find, many good herb plant shops carry it.

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04 Jul 2008
Rant • vegetable

Give Tomatoes a Chance

On July 2, The Washington Post (business section) had yet another article on the latest salmonella scare. Is it tomato? Or is something else? The FDA still does not know. Not a great confidence builder in the FDA or our industrial food system now, is it? The article contained a photograph captioned “Tomatoes are inspected at West Coast Tomato in Palmetto, Fla., last month.” The article – and illustrating photo – may be found here. I had to look really close at that photo, as I first wondered, “why are they using a picture of apples in an article about tomatoes?” Sadly, they ARE tomatoes (if you look close you can see), but they are green and they look rock-hard. What’s the story here?

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