Entries from June 1, 2012 - June 30, 2012

Friday
Jun292012

bellocq. tempura edible flowers. chinese tea eggs and tea salt.

We always plant a bed of edible flowers in our garden upstate to add to salads or to eat straight from the garden. So, I was super inspired when we shot our favorite tea atelier, Bellocq, for the most recent issue of Kinfolk. Heidi Johannsen Stewart of Bellocq came up with this brilliant idea to tempura edible flowers and to serve them with tea salt! They were so good and so beautiful! We ate and drank a lot of tea inspired foods that day. We also made Chinese tea eggs and paired it with the same tea salt. I will share them soon! Have a great weekend!

 If you are going to try this make sure you have done your research as to what flowers are edible! Never use anything that has been sprayed!

 

 


 

Tea salt can add an interesting flavor to just about anything you are cooking.

 


Tea Salt/Lapsang Souchong Salt


1/3 cup tea

We used a smokey tea for this one! (no. 19 Lapsang Souchong) Organic black tea scented with pinewood smoke.  Plucked at high elevations in the Wuyi Mountains, this tea has a distinctive earthy flavor, with strong notes of honey and a rich red liquor.  You can order this tea online from Bellocq

1/4 cup of sea salt

Mortar and pestle until they are somewhat combined

Store in an airtight jar

 

Tea Eggs

Chinese Tea eggs are a populaur street food in China. I never ate them while I was there because I kind of avoid street food whle working. They were super beautiful however and stayed in my mind long after the trip.

Most recipies for Chinese Tea Eggs call for the eggs to be steeped in a combination of  black tea, star anise, cinnamon, soy sauce and black pepper  but you can get creative and add bits of citrus or ginger.

We served these with another fragant tea salt. We used Kiykuya from Bellocq.

 To Make The Tea Eggs:


One dozen Arucuana eggs

1/2 cup loose black tea.

We used Keemun Panda from Bellocq. A Organic full bodied black tea, prized for it's sweet earthy flavor and floral notes with a touch of smokiness. You can use any black tea.

6 star anice

4 large cinnamon sticks

4 tsp. cracked black pepper

1/2-cup soy sauce 


To Make;

Combine your eggs, spices and soy sauce in a large non-reactive pot with enough water to cover the eggs. Simmer your eggs for an hour. Remove the eggs from the liquid and set them aside to cool. Reserve the liquid and spices. (you will later add the eggs to the cooled liquid.)  When the eggs are cool enough to handle, gently crack the hard-boiled eggs with the back of a spoon all over the surface of the egg but not hard enough to remove the shell.

 

 Gently place the cracked hard-boiled eggs in the cooled spices and liquid in a big lidded jar and refrigerate for three days.

The liquid will steep in through the cracks and flavor and stain the white of the egg. The outside will become a beautiful brown.

I used Aracauna eggs so that when I cracked them, the shell on the inside would be blue. The outside of the egg took on the most perfect Wedgewood brown. I couldn't help but think that Martha just might fall in love with that color. Heidi and Michael saved the pieces of the egg shell and added them to their famously beautiful Bellocq tableaus.

 

 

 

Prop Styled by the ever talented Shane Powers! thank you Shane!xx

 

 

 

Thursday
Jun282012

where the wild things are . no 21. chilled wild watercress soup and welsh rarebit with wild ginger


 

I used the last of the wild watercress for this soup. It has now become leggy and has flowered so it is sort of done for the season but it was lovely while it lasted. This recipe is from Alice Waters but I used two kinds of Sorrel instead of one. A wood sorrel and a sorrel I picked up from the Greenmarket.

 

 Chilled Wild Watercress and Sorrel Soup and Welsh Rarebit With Wild Ginger

 Adapted from Alice Water's Watercress and Sorrel Soup 

 

 


2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup minced onion

1/2 pound yellow Finn or red potatoes, peeled and quartered

3 1/2 cups vegetable stock, chicken stock or canned low-sodium

chicken broth

1 pound watercress, tough stems discarded

1/2 pound sorrel, stems discarded

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat the 2 tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion add cook over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about

Stir in the watercress and sorrel, cover and simmer over low heat until the greens are wilted, about 5 minutes. Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender. Return the soup to the saucepan and re-warm over moderately high heat; season with salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the croutons.

NOTES Sorrel is a perennial herb with a sour flavor. It is shaped like spinach, but the color of the leaves ranges from pale to dark green. Look for sorrel with bright, crisp leaves. The stems should not be woody. While sorrel is available year-round, its peak season is the spring, when it's at its mildest.

 

 

 

 

 Welsh Rarebit With Wild Ginger

The key to good Welsh Rarebit is a really good cheddar cheese. I like one with a bit of a bite. Don't worry no rabbits were harmed in this process!! Welsh Rarebit is just another way to say fancy cheese toast and it does not in fact have anything to do with rabbit!!

 

3 tablespoons of unsalted butter

3 tablespoons of AP flour

1 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon Mustard

1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

1/2-teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 cup of heavy cream

1/2 cup of any dark beer

2 cups of grated sharp Cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon grated wild ginger or fresh horseradish

pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Toast 4-6 pieces of bread. I used a raisin nut loaf from Balthazar and the fruit in the bread was perfect with the bite of the Rarebit.

 

 

Grate the cheese

Grate the Wild Ginger or Horseradish

Melt the butter over LOW heat in a small sauce pan and whisk in the four stirring constantly and taking care not to burn the butter or the flour. Add the cream, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, wild ginger, salt, pepper and beer and combine until smooth.  Slowly begin to add the cheese stirring constantly for 5 minutes or so until the sauce is smooth. Pour over the toasted bread and pop under the broiler for a minute or two until the cheese is bubbly. It is often served without broiling but I like it better with a little crisp.

 

 


wild watercess

 watercress, wood sorrel  and sorrel


 wood sorrel


 broiled rarebit


Tuesday
Jun262012

sweet and sour cherry jam.

Sweet and sour cherries are at their peak at the Green Market and sour cherry jam just happens to be the perfect partner to my toast addicton.

I love toast, it is the perfect comfort food. Maybe I love it becuase it reminds me of being a kid or perhaps I love it because it was one of the very first things I made on my own, burnt edges and all. Toast is about  crunch and good bread but delicious butter and jam are right up there in that equation. Last weekend I put up six jars of sweet and sour cherry jam. This might not seem like much but on a cold winter morning, that trio can bring me right back to summer. I have had moderate success with sour cherry jam in the past. When making jam, I sometimes err on the less is more side of the sugar bowl. Sour cherries are super low in pectin so getting it to "set" can be a bit of a challenge, especially when it is sugar deficient!. I was happy to stumble across David Lebovitz's no recipe cherry jam! That is just my style as I am a girl who often wings it in the kitchen. I am all about a no recipe recipe. This one was super easy AND successful! Now I have a little bit summer set aside for that toast on snowy days or maybe I will just eat all six jars before the first leaf falls. x

 

Taken from David Lebovitz's site Living The Sweet Life In Paris

below text David Lebovitz

 

1. Buy as many cherries as you feel like pitting.

Usually I have the patience for about 3 pounds, but it’s up to you. Figure one pound of cherries will make one good-sized jar of jam. Plump, dark Bing cherries work really well, although Burlats are good, and if you can find sour cherries, your jam will rock.

2. Wear something red. Rinse the cherries and remove the stems. Using the handy cherry pitter that I told you to buy a few weeks ago, pit the cherries. Make sure to remove all the pits. Chop about 3/4ths of them into smaller pieces, but not too small. Leave some cherries whole so people can see later on how hard you worked pitting real cherries. If you leave too many whole ones, they’ll tumble off your toast.

3. Cook the cherries in a large non-reactive stockpot. It should be pretty big since the juices bubble up. Add the zest and juice of one or two fresh lemons. Lemon juice adds pectin as well as acidity, and will help the jam gel later on.

4. Cook the cherries, stirring once in a while with a heatproof spatula, until they’re wilted and completely soft, which may take about 20 minutes, depending on how much heat you give them. Aren’t they beautiful, all juicy and red?

5. Once they’re cooked, measure out how many cherries you have (including the juice.) Use 3/4 of the amount of sugar. For example if you have 4 cups of cooked cherry matter, add 3 cups of sugar. It may seem like a lot, but that amount of sugar is necessary to keep the jam from spoilage.

6. Stir the sugar and the cherries in the pot and cook over moderate-to-high heat. The best jam is cooked quickly. While it’s cooking, put a small white plate in the freezer. Remain vigilant and stir the fruit often with a heatproof utensil. (Wouldn’t it be a shame to burn it at this point?) Scrape the bottom of the pot as you stir as well.

7. Once the bubbles subside and the jam appears a bit thick and looks like it is beginning to gel, (it will coat the spatula in a clear, thick-ish, jelly-like layer, but not too thick) turn off the heat and put a small amount of jam on the frozen plate and return to the freezer. After a few minutes, when you nudge it if it wrinkles, it’s done.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday
Jun242012

thank you shandaken bake. pie for dinner.

With Marty on his way to pick up Lula from the beach and Sam in Brooklyn for the evening, I see no reason why I should not eat this lovely little rhubarb pie that was so nicely given to me by Craig from Shandaken Bake at The New Amsterdam Market today. A little pie and some oregano tea, sometimes it just has to be dessert for dinner! ; )

 Our neighbors once in the Catskill's, Shandaken has moved to the city full time! We will miss them at the Round Barn. Don't miss their amazing seasonal pies and other treats at the New Amsterdam Market on Sundays! Keep your ears open for news of a retail venture soon!


Sunday
Jun242012

where the wild things are no.19. fried milkweed blossom.

 Milkweed is the new kale... just saying. 

 You might encounter milkweed on some menus this summer as it is popping up all over the place. I first heard about fried milkweed blossoms last year, through my friend Emily from Four and Twenty Blackbirds.  I immediately looked for some Upstate but was too late in the season for the young blossoms. I made a mental note to not miss them this year. I had a chance to collect some with Evan Strusinski in Southern Vermont last week. They taste a little like asparagus but with a broccoli like texture and they remind me a bit of squash blossoms or day lilies in taste. After a bit of research, I have found that the many parts of this much-maligned weed are edible. If you are interested in wild edibles you may want to pick up Stalking the Wild Asparagus or Petersen's Field Guide To Wild Edibles. Research wild crafters or foragers in your area and make a point of taking a class with them. Always properly identify a plant before eating it! Milkweed in its early growth stages can be confused with Dogbane, a poisonous plant but in its later stages of growth it is easy to identify. You may know the Common Milkweed already, as the plant that attracts the Monarch butterfly. The Monarch depends solely on this plant for its survival. Farmers have never been great fans of this weed as it grows along the edges of pastures and fields and sometimes colonizes and can encroach on crops. Cows and sheep won't touch it. You will often see a field eaten clear down to stubble with the exception of a few lone milkweeds. The plant can be harmful to livestock so this is why they don't eat it. I don't think I ever knew that milkweed was edible. However, I had heard somewhere long about the sixth grade, when we were studying migration, that you could make cloth, paper or rope from the fibers of the pods and stalks but that was about the extent of my knowledge. There will be more recipes  in the near future using milkweed as this was a tasty hit at a Brooklyn party yesterday afternoon! It dissapeared in minutes. I made a batter of spelt flour and dark beer and served them with a generous squeeze of lime and juniper salt. I kind of wish I had some right now!

As a total aside... milkweed fluff was used during World War One to stuff life jackets and flight jackets and has higher insulative property than goose down! You can purchase comforters made with a mix of down and milkweed fluff from the Ogallala Down Comany in Nebraska The seeds of the Common Milkweed plant also happen to be full of Omega 7's.

 

Fried Milkweed Blossoms with Juniper Salt and Lime

1 cup spelt flour

2 eggs

1 cup of dark beer

Juniper salt 

Lime

 


Combine the eggs, flour and beer until a smooth batter is formed.

Clean and wash the milkweed blossoms. I left a bit of stem and some tender leaves on some as I thought it was pretty.

Blanch the blossoms quickly and throw in an ice bath. This takes away any acidity or toxicity.

Pat dry.

Dip the blossoms and leaves lightly in the batter and set on a plate to allow the extra batter to drip off.

Fry the blossoms in vegetable oil until golden. The exposed bits of leaves and stem will be a brilliant green

Drain on paper towel or brown paper bag. Squeeze with lime and garnish with sea salt. 


I crushed some juniper berries in some sea salt and used that for a spicier woodsy flavor.