Archive for Recipes

02 Feb 2012
locavore log • Meat/poultry Recipe • Recipes

Roasted Rabbit

This recipe first appears in the Dec 2011-Jan 2012 Seasonal Table column I write for Flavor Magazine.

Roasted Rabbit, Braised Escarole, Cheesy Polenta & Roasted Carrots. Photo by Molly Peterson, mJm Photography, for Flavor Magazine.

Rabbit is intimidating for many people. Sure, it’s not as available as chicken but a growing number of farms (who often raise poultry) offer rabbits in our area. You can also find them through custom butcher shops. On a per pound basis, rabbit is more expensive  than chicken. But a 3-lb rabbit has more meat than a 3-lb chicken, or rather I should say, that a 3-lb rabbit has denser, more filling meat than a 3 lb-chicken.

Rabbit does not taste like chicken. Not even close. Sure it is a white meat with a lot of flavor, but it is dense and lean. Roast a young animal, braise an older one. Rabbit is both meaty and bony, muscle meat tightly attached to the bones. But if you like eating blue crab, you probably won’t mind all the bones in a rabbit.  When served in a restaurant, rabbit is often deboned and served as a pate, rolled, pulled, or in some other way where using a fork and a knife is breezy. In my home, we don’t mind using our fingers (mostly).

In this recipe, based on a classic French country dish, I use gin and juniper berries. But sometime I will use one of our  local whiskey or rye. Omit the juniper berries if you can’t find them. The mustard is used both for flavor and to help the meat keep moist.

And a bonus – it’s done in a hour: 5 minutes to prep, 50 to cook, 5 to cut up and plate. Cook the veggies while the rabbit is roasting. Read more

sylvie | No comments | Tags: ,
05 Jan 2012
Fruit recipe • Recipes • Snack

The Eighth & Ninth Days of Christmas (Meyer Lemon Marmalade)

Still working through my citrus boxes.

On the Eight Day, the Meyer lemons poached the previous night got squeezed, sliced, briefly simmered with sugar, and rested overnight again. It’s important that the rind softens as much as possible or the marmalade will have an unpleasant texture..

Marmalade before its rest

On the Ninth Day, it get boiled, jarred and processed in a water bath for long-term shelf life. Voila, beautiful marmalade fit to rival traditional Seville orange marmalade (which I could not find.) Particularly good with Butter Cookies from Brittany. You know, if we are going to go sweet, we are going to go sweet! (but a little bit goes a long way – this is a potent marmalade)

Meyer Lemons, Meyer Lemon Marmalade & Brittany Butter Cookies

This recipe illustrates that you may can all year long, and in small quantities too!

Meyer Lemon Marmalade Read more

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03 Jan 2012
locavore log • Recipes • Side Dish

The Sixth and Seventh Days Of Christmas (more lemon recipes)

On the Sixth Day of Christmas, with still over 7 pounds of Meyer lemons left from my citrus order orgy, I made Réunion Island Lemon and Onion Salad.

Lemon and Onion Salad from Reunion Island

Lemon and Onion Salad (Reunion Island Style)

In winter, I often hunger for bright spicy flavors to liven up the stews and braised dishes that are characteristics of this time of the year. Which is often when I return to my roots of Reunion Island, when I particularly reach into the spice cabinet for pungent curcuma, floral vanilla beans, fresh ginger and other flavors reminiscent of Reunion Island. Truth be told, I use those flavors all year long, but I crave them in winter. Read more

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30 Dec 2011
Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes • Side Dish

The Fourth and Fifth Days of Christmas (of Breads and Limes)

The Fourth Day of Christmas was mostly spent cooking dinner for a group of hungry hunters, out for a pheasant shoot. It is the second time I have cooked for that group. It’s always a good thing when a client wants you back!

On the menu:

Alsatian Tarte Flambée and hot gulf shrimps with a spicy sun-dry tomato sauce. I love making that Alsatian Tarte Flambée – it’s easy and it’s always a winner! How can it not be? Slow cooked onions; bacon; crème fraiche. For informal groups like this one, I make a big rectangular tart on a large rimmed cookie sheet or a large free-form pizza. For smaller plated dinner, I make small individual perfectly round tartelettes served with a mache or frisée salad.

Free-Form Alsatian Tarte Flambee

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sylvie | One comment | Tags: , ,
28 Dec 2011
Desserts • egg recipe • Fruit recipe • Recipes

The Third Day of Christmas

We make Meyer Lemon curd. Lots of it.

It takes less than 30 minutes to make a quart of it, and since it freezes beautifully, you may as well make a few quarts… provided you have eggs and lemons. And we do.

meyer lemon curd

Jars of Meyer lemon curd for the fridge and the freezer

 

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sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: , ,
27 Dec 2011
beverage • Recipes

The First Two Days of Christmas

Christmas Day -  dinner for 9.

Locally smoked salmon with creme fraiche tartines (homemade baguette)

Cream of butternut squash & parsnips with truffle oil (butternut squash from guest Wendy ‘s garden. This is Wendy’ second year of gardening only and she – unlike me – had a very nice winter squash harvest. Thanks for sharing, Wendy!)

Green garden salad (mache, lettuces, chicories, chickweed & arugula) with fresh persimmon slices, dry cranberries & toasted pecans. Blackberry vinaigrette.

Roasted leg of Piedmont lamb with garlic, rosemary & ginger. Fennel carrots, mashed potatoes & sautéed oyster mushrooms

Cheese platter (Virginia and other American cheeses), homemade quince paste

A fabulous chocolate torte AND profiteroles made by guest and professional baker Brooke Parkhurst of Triple Oak Bakery (amazingly delicious and gluten-free!)

Dainties, locally roasted coffee and homemade cordials.

Served with Virginia Wines:  Barboursville Brut, RdV Friends & Family 2008, and dessert Chateau O’Brien Virginia Apple Wine.

 

The First Day of Christmas – walk it off

The Second Day of Christmas  – make limoncello

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sylvie | One comment | Tags: , , , ,
15 Nov 2011
locavore log • Recipes • Soups • Vegetable recipe

Mushroom and Spinach Soup

 

This recipe was originally published in the Seasonal Table Column that I write for Flavor Magazine (Oct-Nov 2011 issue).

As the weather cools off, spinach is happily growing for us again, a versatile green delicious raw or cooked. I love the earthy combination of spinach and mushrooms, in salads, stews or soups. And since cultivated mushrooms are available year long in the Mid-Atlantic, some foraged, some grown outdoors like shiitake on logs and others in mushroom houses, local mushrooms are fairly easy to find. You can use any mushroom for this soup, including white mushrooms or a combination of mushrooms. And for a splurge, go for shiitakes or oyster mushrooms or any other that strike your fancy.

 

Mushroom and Spinach Soup Read more

sylvie | One comment | Tags: , ,
27 Sep 2011
Desserts • fruit • Fruit recipe • Wild Food

More on Pawpaws

This post first appeared – with minor modifications and without pictures – as an article “In season now: our fascinating native pawpaw” in the September 22, 2011 issue of the Rappahannock News.

Pawpaw puree

My favorite banana custard involves no cooking whatsoever. No, it doesn’t involve opening a package of store-bought “custard” either. In fact, it requires a stroll along the creek with my nose up in late summer: I am looking for native wild pawpaws (Asimina triloba) that are ripening now and in early fall, sometimes as late as October – depending on the tree and its location. They aren’t showy, but they are easy to recognize: small understory trees with large vaguely-tropical-looking drooping leaves that turn a bright pure yellow in mid-fall. They grow mostly along bottomland creeks, forming ever expanding thickets, often at the edge of the woods. Read more

sylvie | 5 comments | Tags: ,
31 Aug 2011
Desserts • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes

End of Summer Cake

Nectarine & Almond Cake cooling on the window sill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You only need to know a few cake formulas to be able to look smart in the kitchen. Because once you understand the recipe, you can tweak it ad infinitum to vary the result: change the fruit, change the flour, change the flavoring or spice, change the filling, change the icing, change the pan shape… and suddenly the three or four basic cake recipes that you can do (almost) in your sleep become 40 different desserts. That’s why I call them “formulas”.

Witness this recipe for Italian plum cake.

In the spring, use cherries or apricots. In summer, replace the plums with slices of yellow peaches or nectarine. Or slices of sauteed apples or roasted quince or pears in early fall. Or a mixture of fruit. In winter, use rehydrated dry fruit or halved bananas. I more and more use less refined flours like whole wheat or spelt – they accentuate the rustic aspect of the cake. I bet any flour would work! When using stone fruit like peach, I also like to add a little cornmeal (or corn flour) as well as a few nuts. Almonds are great but so are pine nuts if you have them or chopped pecans. Or whatever you’ve got! (or none if you don’t have any).

It’s not a sophisticated looking cake, like, oh say, a Reine de Saba, but is a satisfying not-too-filling dessert, moist, with a little crunch and lots of fruit – great for breakfast too. Best of all,  it’s an easy recipe to memorize, and by playing with it, it will look like you know 10 different recipes!

End of Summer Cake (with nectarine & almonds) Read more

sylvie | 2 comments | Tags: , ,
15 Aug 2011
locavore log • Vegetable recipe

On Making Tomato Paste

10 pounds of tomatoes = 12 fl oz of tomato paste.

Or conserva as the Italians call it.

Three years ago, I was using  Saveur Magazine’s recipe and Italian-type tomatoes to make tomato paste.  I have since learned to use any tomatoes to make tomato paste, not the just the processing type (although they are unquestionably preferable), because you know, I do plant a lot of tomatoes (big, small & medium, and giant) and in good years, we have lots of fruit.  Since the beefsteak tomatoes have a lot more juice, the trick is to get the water out of them. I steam them: I know, it sound contradictory, but it works. I also found that I’d rather use a lower temperature and more time, to avoid burning the paste – which is extremely easy to do toward the end.

The paste does not take a lot of active time (except for the food-mill part) but requires you to be around so you can stir it every hour at the beginning of the oven time, more often as the puree changes to past.

And of course, you could spread the work over a few days: Steam to tomatoes on Day 1 (refrigerate), pass through the food mill on Day 2 (refrigerate) and bake on Day 3.

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sylvie | 4 comments | Tags: ,
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