Johnny jump-ups & other small violas

Mais où sont les neiges d’antan? (where are the snows of yesteryear?)

Early daffodils blooming in January, late ones in March – 4 weeks ahead of schedule. Maples blooming in late February. Red buds in full blooms now. Peach and cherry blossoms passed their peak. Morels already and first asparagus picked on March 28 (friends of mine picked some even earlier in their garden). Strawberries blossoming. Buds breaking on the grapes.

..and it’s dry, dry, dry (although the grass sure looks green… but the creek is low and the ground is dry). It is … disturbing.

The garden is exploding and I am not ready for it.

So… for this (and because of other projects, some of which might end-up being discussed on the blog), I am (I have been)  taking a blog break! A couple of months maybe… maybe less.

Happy spring. Let’s hope we have a cooler than average summer.

The 2 dozen eggplants are looking well and the 15 tomatoes (the ones started in January in hope of a early harvest) are already 3″ tall. This week-end, another 50 cells got seeded with more tomato varieties. In the greenhouse, celeriac and violas have been transplanted to individual cells, chard is germinating and leeks finally got seeded. Some kale seedlings were up-potted and left in the greenhouse – the remainder transplanted outside under agro-fabric.

Outside, I direct-seeded 3 kinds of peas on Sunday: 2 sugar snaps and one dwarf garden pea. I always soak the seeds for several hours until they plump before planting them.

Soaking peas

Sweet potatoes are rooting nicely on one of the dining-room window sills.

Chayotes started. I love chayote, that fruit/vegetable of my childhood. While my Northern Virginia Piedmont climate does not allow me to grow it for its fruit, I can grow for its edible and prolific shoots – a wonderful summer cooking green. For more details, read those prior posts on starting chayote and on growing chayote in Virginia. Next: ginger needs to be started.

Chayote sprouted and potted

More on the needs-to-be-done-real-soon  list: more seeds of spinach and lettuce. And then parsley, basil  and thyme (for the bees). Also favas; onion transplants; broccoli; cabbage; cardoon; mustards; nasturtiums…

I do love it so.

A Spicy Variation on 3-2-1 Custard

This recipe first appeared in the Virginia Wine Gazette.

Peppers (aka chiles) and chocolate are products of the Americas – unknown in Europe until the Spanish conquistadors brought them home in the 16th century. Can you imagine Belgium or Switzerland without chocolate? Calabrian or Greek cuisines without hot peppers?

Cocoa was an expensive beverage – and an acquired taste, too, since it was served without sugar or milk, both unknown in Mesoamerica, but with hot chilies and vanilla, both Mesoamerican native spices. Expensive, bitter and spicy, it’s no wonder cocoa was considered a medication.

Yet, once the Europeans added sugar and milk, hot cocoa, as we know it today, took off. Starting in the 18th century, various processes were developed to form chocolate bars and candies. The modern eating chocolate bar was born in the mid-19th century.

As other tropical areas of the world started to grow the cocoa tree for its seeds, the cocoa bean, which is dried and fermented, chocolate’s popularity was sealed.

Chiles and cocoa work great together indeed: a number of chocolatiers are teasing our taste buds by adding the spice to their gorgeous chocolate confections. You can do it at home too! Add unsweetened cocoa to your favorite chili recipe. Throw a pinch of hot ground chile in chocolate desserts.

I make no claim for their health benefits nor for their possible aphrodisiac qualities, but I can assure you that chocolate and chiles, alone or together, are wonderful winter fare – in fact wonderful fare any time of the year.

Below is a variation of what I called 3-2-1 custard: the Spicy Chocolate Custard. 3 eggs/2 cups milk/ 1 cup chocolate chips: those are easy proportions to remember, negating the need for printed recipe if you need to whip a dessert quickly. You may tweak the spices and flavoring endlessly for subtle differences.

Spicy Chocolate Custard

6 servings (a generous ½ cup each – or stretch this very intense custard to 8 smaller servings)

• 3 eggs, preferably from pastured hens
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• dash each of salt, cinnamon and cayenne
• 2 cups whole milk, preferably organic from pastured cows
• 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (or chopped eating-quality bittersweet chocolate)
  

Put water to boil in a kettle.

Warm up milk until barely simmering. Add chocolate, stirring constantly until completely melted – about 1 minute.

Whisk eggs, salt and spices in a large bowl. Slowly pour in the hot milk, whisking briskly and constantly to avoid curdling the eggs.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Pour custard back into saucepan, whisking constantly while the oven is preheating.

Distribute custard among 6 small ovenproof containers. Place containers in a deep ovenproof pan, ensuring they do not touch. Pour hot water in pan until it reaches ½ way up the custard containers. Carefully transfer to oven. Bake 30 minutes.

Let cool. To sweeten (if desired), offer maple syrup and freshly whipped cream on the side.

Loacavore Log: eggs from the hen house, milk (Trickling Springs Creamery), chile from last summer’s garden

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.

Roasted Rabbit

SERVES 6

• 1          tablespoon olive oil
• 1          3 pound rabbit
• 6          juniper berries
• 6-10     sprigs of fresh thyme, to taste
• 2          teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
• 2          tablespoons gin (or local rye or whisky)
• 6          tablespoon Dijon-style mustard
• 2          tablespoons butter

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Smear an oven-safe dish just big enough to hold the rabbit with oil. In the body cavity, place juniper berries and thyme sprigs. Rub the rabbit with the gin and smear the side that’s facing up it with 3 tablespoons of mustard. Dot the rabbit with the cut-up butter. Sprinkle half of the thyme leaves
3. Roast for 15 minutes. Take out of the oven. Carefully flip the rabbit, baste with accumulated liquid, smear the remaining mustard on the side now facing up and sprinkle with the remaining thyme leaves.  Roast for another 35 minutes (for a total of 50 minutes). Baste with the accumulated pan juice of  few times.
4. Cut up and serve hot.

Locavore Log: Rabbit (from Ethan Berry, Sperryville, VA) , herbs, butter

2011 was an outstanding cherry year here in Rappahannock, the kind we get every five years or so. Back in June, I made both sweet and sour cherry liqueur. They need to age with the fruit for 6 months or so. At bottling time, I was loath to just throw out the cherries that had been macerating. They still had a good color, firm texture, a decent cherry taste… although a little too boozy to just eat, and a distracting pit. The solution: pit them, cook them gently and briefly in a simple sugar syrup, and now I have a great dessert topping. Lets’ call them Tipsy Cherries!

In the process I confirmed that the cherry pitter I bought after the season was over last year, is indeed a great purchase because it pits not only fresh cherries, but also canned cherries, boozy cherries, and thawed cherries! I generally dislike single purpose gadget, but this was was worth the $20 I paid for it!

Tpisy Cherries

Eating local in winter! What a gift!

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)

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

Meyer Lemon Marmalade

Yields about 5 1/2 pint jars

• 2 pounds (900 g) of organic unwaxed Meyer lemons (about 10 or 11 large ones)
• A scant 2 pounds of sugar (850 g)

1. Put the whole lemons in a heavy non-reactive pan, cover with water, bring to a gentle boil, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove lemons  from the water and let cool totally. Discard the water.
2. Halve the lemons, squeeze out and reserve the juice.
3. Quarter the shells, and slice the rinds as thinly as you can. Chop some down in tiny pieces (mine – as shown in the pictures – were not thin enough to yield my favorite marmalade texture texture).
4. Put the chopped rinds and sugar in a large heavy non-reactive pan. Strain the juice into it (save and dry the seeds if you wish as they be used to provide pectin for jam made with low-pectin fruit)
5. Gently bring to boil, stirring so that the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat and let rest in a cool place overnight.
6. Bring the marmalade to a medium boil, stirring often. Boil for 10 minutes stirring constantly to prevent scorching – or until the marmalade gels properly (to test for gel: remove the pot from the heat. Put a small amount of jam on a small plate that has been in the freezer for 15 minutes. Wait a minute or two. The jam is ready is it gels then.) This is a very easy jam to overcook. So watch out!
7. Immediately transfer the marmalade to Mason jars and can for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. (Alternatively you may  ladle into jars and let cool without canning before refrigerating them for a few months.)

Note: as a variant you could add a little bit of finely chopped fresh ginger root or a vanilla bean.

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.

On Réunion Island, this salad (which would be called “Rougail” or “Sauce”) would be served with fish curry or shrimp (or lobster) curry  or grilled whole fish or other seafood. I also like it with rich meats where the sharpness of the lemons and onions cut through: pork roast (like a whole fresh roasted ham), in a ham sandwich or  with a grilled cheese sandwich (especially one made with pungent cheese). It’s good with just about everything where you want a mellow sourness!

Reunion Island Lemon and Onion Salad

• 2 large untreated/unwaxed organic lemon (I like Meyer lemons as they have little pith)
• 1/2 a large or 1 medium yellow onion (enough to weigh as the 2 lemons/ about 100 g or 3.3 oz)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/3 cup olive oil or grapeseed oil (more if needed)
• 1/2 oz fresh ginger root*
• fresh chili pepper to taste *
• 1 tablespoon each finely minced fresh cilantro leaves and fresh parsley leaves

1. Gently squeeze some of the juice from the lemons and reserve (this makes it easier to slice juicy lemons). Thinly slice the lemons and the onions – as thinly as you can – and put them in a non reactive bowl. Salt and let rest for at least an hour, two better, at room temperature to give the onions and lemons a chance to sit for a few hours to mellow.It’s wonderful what happens to the onions.
2. Mash the ginger and chile peppers together into a paste. Add to the onion/lemon mixture along with the reserved lemon juice & olive oil. Mix well. Taste and add more oil if you wish.

*Note: If you do not have ginger or fresh chile peppers on hand, substitute  some Reunion-Style hot sauce (which is what I did, this being December when all my chiles are dried or sauced, and when I have exhausted my stash of fresh garden ginger in the last 2 batches of lime pickles). You could also use Vietnamese-style hot sauce. How much to add?  to taste, depending how spicy you want it. It should be spicy enough to be noticed but not so hot that it burns your mouth. For me that’s a comfortable tablespoon.

The salad will keep for a few days in the fridge. In fact, I like it best the second day.

The Seventh Day of Christmas (January 1st ). Clear and sunny in the morning when we take a walk in the hollow. Alas! True winter is on the way, that nice view of The Shenandoah Mountain soon obscured by dark clouds brought by a Nordic cold front.

I may as well cook, right? How about Lemon Confit? My batch did not turn out as pretty as the picture shown in the Saveur recipe. Because Meyer lemons are so juicy and have a thin skin, it’s hard to have slices that stay together when cooked. Tasty nonetheless! And fast.

In the evening I poach Meyer lemons to start the marmalade process. Stay tuned!

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

Mixed green salad with pecans, dry cranberries, sun-dry tomatoes in oil and parmigiano cheese. Fresh biscuits (in fact the ability to turn out good biscuits seems to have been a primordial reasons for being back). A choice of classic vinaigrette as well as ranch dressing. Ranch was requested by the client: I actually had to look up the recipe! Thank you Brooke for enlightening me. Ranch is surprisingly tasty. Who knew?

Beef Stew: Bourguignon-style, minus the pearl onions, but plus lotsof carrots and a not insignificant dollop of mashed fresh ginger root (à la Réunionnaise - the cooking of my childhood). Choice of rice or cheesy polenta. A side of Réunionese-style onion & hot chile salad (with yet more ginger)

Vanilla Bean Maple Custard. Fresh Whipped Cream. Homemade Chocolate Cookies.

No fancy food, just honest sturdy family-style food. They want me back next week… despite the fact that I refused to serve okra the first time they asked me to cook for them. I will not do fresh corn either, I said. Not in December I insisted. They are not in season, they won’t be good, and no, I won’t use frozen okra unless it’s in gumbo and frozen corn unless it’s for spoonbread or corn chowder. Still, local fare included the meat, bacon, eggs, maple syrup and  dairy.

The Fifth Day of Christmas. I returned to non-local fare.

Did I say I ordered lots of citruses for Christmas? including 5 pounds of limes, bio-dynamically grown and untreated/unwaxed post-harvest from La Vigne Organics in California. Which means I could use them in preparation where the zest or the whole fruit is needed. In fact, I do not intend to waste any of it. If I can’t use them right away, zests will be dried.

So a few days ago it was all sugar and sweets: limoncello and Meyer lemon curd. Today, I turned to sour: I made a sweet and sour lime pickle based on a recipe from Sensational Preserves by Hilaire Walden (I modified the proportions as there was too much liquid as well as the seasoning). I also put together a condiment from Reunion Island (Confit de citrons verts). Any unused zest got dropped into vodka for a cordial (I wanted to make another Reunion Island recipe but did not have white rum on hand -gasp! – so it’ll be Reunion inspired only).

Both pickles have to sit for several weeks before they can be eaten. The cordial for about a week until the next step.

Lime zests steeping in vodka for lime cordial, just made sweet and sour lime pickle, Reunion Island Preserved Lime (Confit de citrons verts)

Reunion Island Preserved Limes

• water
• 10 limes
• 3 tablespoons coarse see salt
• 1 thumb-size piece plump ginger root, peeled & sliced
• a few dry chile pepper (On Reunion Island, they use fresh chile, a type recommended for pickles… but I make do with what I have)
• cider vinegar (on Reunion Island they use wine vinegar, I did not have any so I used Braggs cider vinegar)

Bring water to boil. Drop limes in boiling water, let the water come back to a boil then remove the pan from the heat and let sit in water for a total of 3 minutes staring from when you dropped the limes in the water. I was not sure what that did ( I just remember it being done). Bu after having also prepared the Sweet & Sour Lemon Pickle (next recipe), I know that this step softens the limes and starts to release their juice.

Reserve the boiling water – let it cool.

Cut each lime in four, not slicing through completely so the quarters are still attached. Do this on a plate so you can easily collect the juice which will burst out of the blanched limes.

Arrange the limes into a quart-size European style jar (like French Le Parfait or Italian Fiddo), cut size up and slightly open. Sprinkle salt into the limes, as well as some of the ginger and chiles. Repeat. As you pack the jar, the limes release some of their juice. Also add any juice collected when you cut the limes.

Measure equal volume of the cooled water where you blanched the limes and of the vinegar – enough to fill the jar and cover the limes.

Seal. Let age for a few weeks, then refrigerate.

Preserved Limes Recipe # 2 – Sweet and Sour Lime Pickles

Based on a recipe in Sensational Preserves by Hilaire Walden, page 76

• 8 limes, each cut in 6 wedges
• 8 teaspoons sea salt
• 1 very very very large garlic clove, julienned
• 2 thumb-size pieces of plump ginger root, peeled, sliced and cut again match-stick thick
• a few hot dry chiles – to taste
• 6 limes
• white vinegar
• sugar

In a very clean wide-mouth or European-style quart jar, make one layer of lime wedges, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt, a few pieces of garlic, ginger and chiles. Repeat until seven times. Press lightly on the wedges as needed.

Roll the other 6 limes on the counter, pressing hard – this helps release the juice inside the fruit. Remove the zest and reserve for another use. Juice the lime, and measure the juice (I had a scant 2/3 C juice). Put into a small non-reactive sauce pan with an equal volume of white vinegar and twice as much sugar (in volume). Heat up until small bubbles form, whisking to dissolve sugar. Pour over the lime wedges.

The original recipes said to process in water bath, but I am skipping that step. I am going to let the pickles age for a few weeks, checking the jar and pushing down on the fruit until they have thoroughly absorb the marinate and no longer float above the liquid. Then refrigerate.

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.

Jars of Meyer lemon curd for the fridge and the freezer

Although I am a proponent of eating locally for economical, environmental, philosophical and tasty yadayada reasons, I do have a fondness for tropical fruit in winter. In the dark months, there is not much fresh local fruit available in the Northern Virginia Piedmont. Apples and pears. Mostly apples … and raw apples no longer agree with us. Of yes, I have frozen blueberries, cherries, wineberries, blackberries, strawberries and canned peaches, plums and nectarines, and dried peaches too. But? But it.is.just.NOT.the.same. You know!

Having grown up in the tropics, I retain a love of juicy fragrant oranges, bitter pomelos, golden lemons and acid limes, sun-filled mangoes, flowery guavas and loquats, letchis, longans, cherymoyas, papayas, pineapples… Most of them, I no longer even bother trying to buy, because they will only be a pale shadow of the real things. Not only because of the limited varieties available in the store (typically bred for shipping not for taste), but because they have been handled incorrectly. Citruses – however – do travel fairly well. Each is an individually wrapped gift, the juicy bright flesh protected by its rind. It’s one reasons they have been traded for centuries. They also will keep for weeks in a cool dry location (like my pantry)

I used to get a couple of cases from our local HS band booster. But after reading about the chemicals used in citrus groves, I decided to buy organics. (Sadly the booster was unable or uninterested in sourcing organic fruit). It took me a few years to work up to using Local Harvest and order citrus from Florida or California. It felt wrong. It felt like I was cheating. But once raw apples had to bet cut out of our diet, I got us a case of biodynamic Meyer lemons, limes and Satsuma tangerines as well as a case of oranges and grapefruits from a small Florida farm. Merry Christmas!

Freshly squeezed orange juice and vibrant grapefruits are on the breakfast menu for a few precious weeks. They are precious. I have plans for the limes & lemons: drying the zest, making cordials, sorbets, freezing the juice for later, and of course, lemon (and lime) curd. Maybe a marmalade and certainly a sour preserve. But first, curd.

Curd is basically a custard: instead of milk you use lemon juice (or lime juice). It’s very easy to make. Truly, it is. It keeps extremely well in the freezer if you cannot use a batch within a week or so. A great lemon curd is a blessing for breakfast over toast or – better – homemade baguette or warm biscuits; it will make the most incredible lemon tart (with or without meringue), can be used to fill cream puffs or any cake; add some whipped cream and you tame its tanginess for wonderful fruit tarts (using those canned peaches I was talking about.. or strawberries when they are in season… in 5 months!).

Wintery breakfast: Meyer lemon curd on Angel food cake

The proportions of eggs and butter are pretty variable (look up recipes and you will find some wide discrepancy). So is the amount of lemon juice: use less for curd intended for a tart, more for one that’s going on a toast– or to taste. This tells you it is an easy forgiving recipe. There are two schools of preparations: one is directly over the stove (in which case you should strain the curd before adding the butter to ensure it is smooth). The others calls for a double boiler. I use the first. I am lazy.

Meyer Lemon Curd

makes about 1 quart

• 8 eggs yolks *
• 4 whole eggs
• 1 1/3 C sugar (275 g)
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups of freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice (from about 6 to 8 large Meyer lemons), depending how tart you like your curd (360 to 480 ml). 1 2/3 C is generally a happy medium (400 ml)
• the zest from one lemon (use a microplane if possible)
• 10 to 14 tablespoons very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces. I generally use 12 tablespoons (1 per egg), but it’s taste dependent. (150 to 200 g)

In a non-reactive thick-bottom sauce pan, whisk all the ingredients (except butter) until you have a smooth mixture (ensuring all the yolks are broken and well mixed in). Put on medium heat and whisk gently – but almost constantly and thoroughly – until the mixture really thickens, and almost starts to simmer – about 10-15 minutes.

Remove from heat. Strain through a fine mesh sieve. Whisk in the butter, a couple of pieces at a time. Wait for it to be fully melted before adding more. Let cool, whisking occasionally to prevent the formation of a “skin” on top of the curd.

Chill. I would guess it may keep at most 2 weeks in the fridge. A week should be safe. It freezes beautifully (make sure to leave room for expansion as the curd will swell somewhat when it freezes)

Meyer Lemon Curd cooling. Whisk it occasionally to prevent the formation of a skin - a purely aesthetic issue

* Make Angel food cake or meringues with the extra whites. Or freeze for later use.