Archive for Vegetable recipe

05 May 2009
Dairy recipe • locavore log • Soups • Vegetable recipe

Cream Of Radish Leaf Soup and Homemade Farm Cheese

My frugal peasant instincts won’t let me throw out (OK, compost) perfectly good to eat radish leaves. Of course, there is somebody in the house (who shall rename nameless) who does not think that radish leaves are perfectly good to eat.

I still, sometime, manage to sneak them in soup and stir fries, when the leaves are young. There are a lot more difficult to sneak in if the leaves are mature, because they can be… mmm… fibrous.

But I like cream of radish leaf soup. It tastes good, it’s thrifty. And it’s nutritious: lots of Vitamin A, B1, B2, C & Iron. Bottom line: Don’t discard the leaves, that’d be a waste. If the leaves are stringy, pass the puréed soup through a fine-meshed sieve (or a “chinois” if you’ve got one of those) to ensure it’s smooth.

Cream of Radish Leaf Soup is a recipe I submitted to Flavor Magazine for the Seasonal Table of their April 2009 issue, along with Radish Tartines and Homemade Fresh Farm Cheese. Scroll to page 2 for my recipes. But they are other nifty recipes there that I encourage you to look at, including Caramelized Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake with Strawberries & Whipped Cream from Heidi Morf of Twenty Four Crow (Heidi used to own Four & Twenty Blackbirds) , Morel Mushroom Risotto with Rosemary Cream and Chive Oil from David Scales of the Inn at Meander Plantation – a recipe I really should try if more morels deign to be hunted this year… and a few other early spring recipes. I am in good company.

Pictures? How about farm cheese in the making?

sylvie | 15 comments | Tags: , , ,
18 Apr 2009
Harvest • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Vegetable recipe

Spring Luncheon

The secret is in the dressing.

Well, not really. The secret is a just-picked mix of lettuce and other greens such oak leaf-lettuce, Reine des Glaces, baby arugula, baby spinach, frisee, a few pea shoots, an asparagus or two (thinly sliced), sorrel, escarole, a smattering a baby mustard, flowering tips of kale and cabbage, a wee bit of anise hyssop & mint, and the very very last of the mache. To tell the truth, the baby arugula, baby spinach and baby mustard, are – truly! – thinnings: I sow the seeds too close, on purpose, knowing that I will harvest every other plant (several times) until the correct spacing is left for final crop to mature nicely. Meanwhile, the thinnings are big enough to make a real salad, and make a better use of preciopus real estate: no need to wait for that bed space to fill. Sow thickly & harvest with scissors.

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But a good dressing matters: at the bottom of the salad bowl, whisk one part balsamic vinegar of Modena & 3 parts extra virgin olive oil. Add the salad. Toss. Scatter a handful of Johnny-Jump-up flowers (Viola tricolor) on top so they can make faces at you. Needless to say the flowers have not received a drop of pesticide or herbicide…. only use edible organic flowers (and greens too of course) – in other words don’t expect to pick up a flat of pansies at the garden center and pluck the flowers for your salad. They are likely to have ben sprayed with stuff you do not want next to you plate – let alone swallow. Or grow some: they are some accommodating, so cheery and so daintily robust!

Take your prettiest chipped plate. Add a dollop of pork rillettes (French-style potted meat from pastured pork), a chunk of crusty homemade baguette and a large serving of salad. Sit down. Tuck in. That’s lunch!

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Note for locavore log: homemade bread, rillettes made with Rappahannock pork + garden herbs, all the greens and flowers from the garden.

sylvie | 9 comments | Tags: ,
15 Mar 2009
Cookery • locavore log • Main Dish • Meat/poultry Recipe • Vegetable recipe

He Likes Duck Fat

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Potatoes fried in duck fat, with garlic & parsley, a very fresh green salad (with not a leaf of lettuce in sight) topped with a little bit of duck breast – a perfect lunch for this blessedly rainy Sunday.

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Obviously, he thought so too (and had an intense lemon tart with coffee for dessert).

This meal is characteristic of improvised cooking; you know, cooking without a recipe based on what you’ve got. We had a breast of duck left from a roast and duck fat just rendered from that same roast, and potatoes, of course. That calls for potatoes in duck fat, reminiscent of Pommes de Terre à la Sarladaise, a dish named after the town of Sarlat in Southwest France. While one variations on this homey dish includes truffles, the poor woman’s version (mine) makes do with garlic. Don’t knock it off until you’ve tried it: duck fat makes the best fried potatoes. As far as the green salad, it was a mix of mache, sorrel, baby red Russian kale & Tuscan kale, and frisée endive, fresh from the garden. Any good-quality store bought mesclun will do; make sure it’s on the robust side so it can take the hot dressing, and with a hint of bitterness or tartness to stand up to the richness of the potatoes.

End of Winter Salad with Duck Breast & Potatoes in Duck Fat Read more

sylvie | 15 comments | Tags: , , , , , ,
22 Feb 2009
Appetizer • Cookery • Garden • herb • herb recipe • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Side Dish • Soups • vegetable • Vegetable recipe

Lovely Lemony Sorrel

There are indubitable signs of springs out there (besides the 2 minutes of additional daily daytime we are getting now).

For once, the snowdrops are nodding their tiny white bells in the still blustery gusts of wind and then, then!, yellow IS swelling the buds of the early daffodils. But for the ever hopeful kitchen gardener, a much surer sign that spring is coming is what’s budding, swelling, germinating, pushing up or otherwise showing signs of life in the vegetable garden.

Is there something fresh I can sink my teeth in – or at least wake up my taste buds (pun intended) with? Something green? With a little bite? Something… live? I have talked about reliable mache growing outside in winter, but a few other denizens that grow happily enough in a cold frame provide fresh taste at this time of the year: spinach, cutting celery, parsley, arugula, and sorrel are among them. They do not need a cold frame per se, but the protection provided by a cold frame allows them to send forth new leaves much earlier than their unprotected brethren, left totally outside in what is otherwise a generally bleak landscape at this time of the year.

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Sorrel might be less well known on the list, so let’s talk about it, a little, shall we? Read more

sylvie | 23 comments | Tags: , , , , , , ,
14 Feb 2009
Cookery • locavore log • Recipes • Soups • Vegetable recipe

Cream Those Sunchokes

So what do you do with that almost, but not quite forgotten vegetable, Jerusalem Artichokes or Sunchokes, freshly dug from the garden?

I have read that you can eat it raw, but have not tried that yet – except for a sliver to taste: it’s crunchy and mildly sweet , like a good young turnip, not as crunchy as a a water chestnut, and with a taste of its own, vaguely nutty. El mentioned that she has eaten it in a gratin (and although she likes it, it does not like her), Colleen turns it into a creamy sunchocke soup, and Hank pickles it to avoid the noisy side effects (See Note) that sunchokes have on some people. While the pickle recipe looks tempting, reminding me of the Indian-style pickles “Zachards” that I was eating when growing up, it takes more time to make than the soup (especially as you must let it age two weeks). So soup it was I made. Many sources suggest sunchokes be used like potatoes, so I decided to adapt my leek & potato soup to become Leek and Sunchoke Soup.

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sylvie | 13 comments | Tags: , , , ,
14 Jan 2009
Cookery • Desserts • fruit • Fruit recipe • locavore log • Recipes • Vegetable recipe

Really Cute Teeny Jam Tarts

Who does not like dessert? A little something sweet at the end of the meal? Especially a special meal? Yeah even the people who say they don’t really like sweets love a little dessert.

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While I like to think myself fairly conversant in making pretty no-bake sweet endings like sorbets, ice-creams, mousses and cold confections that use them to build more elaborate desserts such as Sundaes and Jubilees, dessert baking is not my forte. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have a number of baked desserts in my repertoire (Tarte Tatin & Upside Down Cakes come to mind), but those are – shall we say – on the rustic, if delicious, side…. While a good tarte tatin is a thing to eat with gratitude, sophisticated it is not! However, many guests do remember the meal finale, not only how it tastes, but also how it looks: so grand it should be, or at least cute. A plate of fruit, no matter how fresh and how artistically presented, most often won’t do.

So… in my quest to prepare cute small desserts that I can conjure blindfolded, that can be prepared in advance if needed, that are not too heavy, and inspired by blogs such as Tartelette and Cannelle & Vanille, I am practicing small portion desserts.

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Disclaimer: you really should check Helen’s blog (Tartelette) and Aran’s blog (Cannelle & Vanille) if you are interested in gorgeous, inspiring, innovative sweets of all kinds. Both Helen and Aran are professional pastry chefs who are sharing their recipes with the rest of the world. While their creations look incredible (just the photos will startle your eyes wide open), they seem accessible; nonetheless, they require finesse and a sure yet delicate touch to produce such perfect-looking confections… I said I was inspired, I did not say I was there. Helen and Aran display a dedication to and an understanding of their craft that is admirable. Me? I just want to make pretty seasonal desserts that get all eaten with a sigh of satisfaction.

I have had request for snacks too lately. Something about brownies. But I though I’d get some practice with one of the basic dough, Sweet Short Crust Pastry, a very versatile dough great for making cookies, tarts, tartelettes, and one that can substitute for puff pastry in Tarte Tatin. It can also be made in advance and rolled and shaped shortly before baking. Unlike other crust, sweet short pastry does not need to be blind-baked: the egg in the dough prevents the pastry from becoming soggy when baked with its filling.

I’ve got jams, I’ve got canned pears that was put up in the fall and I’ve got frozen berries that I picked this summer. So I made a bunch of Pear and Quince Jam Tartelettes and some Wineberry and Raspberry Jam Tartelettes. (The snack eater appreciated them!). But really any fruit and jam that are complementary will work – as well as custard and pine nuts! Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags: , , , , ,
12 Dec 2008
Cookery • Main Dish • Meat/poultry Recipe • vegetable • Vegetable recipe

Chayote by Any Other Name

Cut shoots of chayote

I know. It’s not in season. But I am dreaming of it, because of a post from Elise on Simply Recipes. Chayote shoot is a taste of my childhood. Around the holidays, don’t we reminisce about good memories?

At some point I’ll post more info on the chayote, of which the young shots & leaves, the fruit and the tubers are edible, and on how to grow it in Virginia. In the US – at least here in Virginia – , I have only seen the fruit for sale. It’s easy to grow, is not bothered by pest – it just take time to get it started. Once it starts growing after the weather warms up, it will swallow a trellis in very little time, providing plenty of shoots for the kitchen: the more you pick, the more it branches, the more shoots there are – and shoots is what I want to talk about today.

While the fruit is very mild, easily absorbing other flavors, the shoots have a more pronounced taste of their own. It’s worth checking ethnic market for them. They might be carried there. Otherwise, come back here and read what I will write about growing your own. By the way, other name under which chayote (botanically Sechium edule) is known are: christophine or, christophene in the French Caribbean, mirliton in Louisiana, chocho in Australia, chouchou on Reunion Island. It originates from Mexico but has spread to many cuisines of the world, especially in Asia.They braise beautifully – or is that stir-fry since they need cook only 20 minutes or so after the initial few minutes in the hot oil – acquiring an unctuousity that’s hard to describe. A quick and tasty way to have them is Chayote Shoots with Ginger Pork.

Disclaimer added 12/13/08: Both photos were taken in the summer. As of December, here in Virginia, my chayote vine is dead, killed by cold. I will plant a new one out come next spring. You could freeze the shoots, once cooked.

Chayote shoots with pork

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sylvie | 13 comments | Tags: , , , ,
21 Nov 2008
beverage • Cookery • Fruit recipe • Recipes • Vegetable recipe

Consider the (Cranberry) Shrub

Cranberries are not a shrub, you say? You are right, but they can be turned into a shrub, the sweet-tart refreshing drink that was popular before colas.

Today – if the word is recognized at all as a drink – shrub is often understood to signify a cocktail. And indeed, in colonial times, it was often meant as a sweet-tart punch made with citrus or raspberry juice and fortified with brandy. The word shrub can trace its origins to Middle-Eastern drink made from fruit juice, often chilled with snow: sharâb – which gave us Sherbet in English. The beverage “shrub” comes from a related word šurb, a drink [itself from šariba, to drink]. By the way, the derivation of shrub, meaning a bush, comes from Middle English schrubbe [itself from Old English scrybb.] Over the centuries, the two different derivations melded into one word.

Several of the well-know 19th century cookbooks such as Martha Washington’s, Mary Randolf’s, and Lydia Maria Child’s, have recipes for shrubs – basically fruit juice (often from berries), sugar & vinegar made into a syrup. Sometimes they were called Vinegars, as in Mrs. Haskell’s Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia published in 1861 which has Vinegar As A Drink For The Invalids, adding sugar, pounded ice & water to a gill of fruit vinegar (made from scratch of course, and of which 14 recipes are provided from apples to currants to raspberries and whortleberries).

Over the 19th century, with food becoming industrialized, colas took over, providing a ready shelf-stable sweet drink and the word “shrub” disappeared from the common lexicon. Today, outlets where shrub can be bought are rare – Tait Farms, in Pennsylvania, is one of the few. Otherwise – short of making your own (which is very easy… and, yes, we are getting to that!) – you can probably sample it in those places that aim to give a glimpse on life in colonial times, like Williamsburg, VA.

Serving Cranberry Shrub

Just one more point before we get to the recipe: how do you drink shrub? Easy… put a jigger of the shrub in a glass, top with soda/carbonated water or tonic water or sparkling apple cider or sparkling wine, and you have a tasty pretty fizzy drink perfect for celebrations. Since this not the season for raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, or currant (unless you stashed some excess in your freezer), let’s make Cranberry Shrub. A Votre Santé! Read more

sylvie | 7 comments | Tags: , ,
08 Nov 2008
Cookery • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Main Dish • Side Dish • vegetable • Vegetable recipe

Fall Salad Days

I think I love my kitchen garden more in the fall then in the spring: cooler temperatures are accompanied by a lot less bugs and the beds are brimming with salad greens (sorrel, lettuce, frisée, endive, mache, arugula), cooking greens (tatsoi, pakchoi and other mustard, kale, Swiss Chard), peas (the shoots of which are delicious in salad too – besides the pods), carrots, celeriac, beets (the tops of which are also edible) and some cabbages. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash & pumpkins have been harvested and stored. The last of the tomatoes were brought in to ripen and the peppers picked before the first frost will remain good for a few more weeks.

But what I really love in that time of the year when we often have a little spell of Indian Summer with sunny warm days and mild nights is to feast on big bowls of fresh mixed greens salad. Back in August I was urging you to go and plant your fall garden. Remember? I hope you did sow your fall garden seeds then and are now harvesting the leaves of that effort. I am.

The two pictures above explain my planting fervor back in the heat of summer: the first one was taken on September 12 after transplanting various seedlings that had been sown in August. The second one was on October 24. (Click on the picture for a larger – and cleaner- version.)

The result is lots of salad lunches! Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: , , , , , ,
09 Oct 2008
Appetizer • Cookery • fruit • Fruit recipe • Kitchen Garden • locavore log • Soups • Vegetable recipe

Of Apples and Apple Soup

Gala, Crispin (or Mutsu), Fuji, Honeycrisp, Rhode Island Greening, York, McIntosh, Jonathan & Jonagold, Stayman Winesap, even Golden Delicious (one of MY favorites), Red Delicious & Granny Smith: those are just a few of the cultivars of apples available for pick up at our local orchards. As the season continues, the late apples will come in, such as the Black Arkansas and the Lady apple, a small perfumed apple that will keep well into February.

Trio of applesThe names dance in a litany of languages – there are more than 7,500 cultivars of orchard apple, Malus domestica. Some were bred purposefully, such as Jonagold, a cross between Jonathan and Golden Delicious developed in 1943 in New York. Others were chance seedlings judged good enough to be propagated, such as Golden Delicious discovered on the farm of Anderson Mullins in Clay County, West Virginia in 1912, and the official apple of the State of West Virginia since 1955. The Rhode Island Greening is an old, historic American apple variety that originated in 1650 in Newport, Rhodes Island: it’s – surprise! – the official apple of Rhode Island. The Spitzenberg that originated in Esopus, New York, in the mid 18th century was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson: it’s still grown at Monticello, and is sometime available at farmstands in Virginia.

But while we think of apples as “American”, the fruit was brought to the new world by settling Europeans whose ancestors had received it hundreds or thousands of years before. Apples originated in the central mountainous provinces of Eurasia (where they still grow wild in an incredible array of shapes, forms, colors and tastes) and were spread over 10,000 years ago, by nomadic population of hunters/gatherers who “settled down” as they started to cultivate crops. The apple made its way to China, India, the Middle-East and Europe thousands of years ago. Remains of apples were found in excavation of Jericho and dated to about 6,500 BC. Dried apples sliced were placed in royal tombs of modern Southern Iraq around 2500 BC to be found by modern archeologists. Homer mentions apples in the Odyssey. The Romans cultivated apples extensively (the Lady apple is thought to come straight from that ancient time when it was known as Api apple – it’s still called Api in French today, the “pomme d’Api”). The Romans disseminated the apples to the far corners of their empire including the British isles where only crab apples (different species altogether) where known until then. And the British brought it to their American colonies.

When one picks up an apple, one picks up more than just a fruit: one picks up a piece of our human story that dates back to before records were written and a piece of our common heritage.

Now you want a recipe? Oh… Ok, but there is no picture – yet.

How about apple & carrot soup, linking two important fresh produce of fall? It’s one of the recipes I taught on my recent “Cooking with Apples” workshop. Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: , , , ,
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