Grow. Cook. Eat.

Spring Fever, Part II (Fiddlehead Salad)

They say you shouldn’t go to the grocery store hungry because you will over-buy. A corollary to that adage would be, “Don’t go to Russo’s at the peak of Spring.” I’m like a kid in a candy shop, throwing everything in my cart – fresh English peas, morels, fiddlehead ferns, asparagus and ramps. 

As I unloaded my bags at home, I thought about what I could make with my bounty. I could make a mélange of vegetables to serve with fish, but I wanted each vegetable to have a chance to shine. Instead, I opted to spread the wealth across several meals.  The first meal, I wrote about here: a rather straightforward dish that I replicate in similar fashion every year.

For my second spring meal, I wanted to take a new direction. I found a recipe for fiddleheads that marinates them with soy sauce and sesame oil. This seemed like the perfect accompaniment to teriyaki.  And when I make teriyaki, I usually add shiitakes, morels seemed like the logical spring substitution.

The vinaigrette for the fiddleheads is reminiscent of the bean sprout salads served in Japanese and Korean restaurants. I would use this same preparation in the future with bean sprouts.

Fiddlehead Salad

½ pound fiddlehead ferns
1 teaspoons sugar
2 tbs. soy sauce
1 ½ tbs. sesame oil
1 ½ tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

1. Soak fiddleheads in water. Let the dirt settle to the bottom. Lift them out, and drain on a paper towel. Repeat this process two more times.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt generously. Add fiddleheads, and cook for three minutes, or until bright green. Drain well and shock them in an ice bath.
3. In a bowl combine sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil. Add drain the fiddleheads and toss to coat. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve with morels and teriyaki glazed fish or chicken.

Soil Amendments (Recipe: Banana Bread)

Photo Credit: My Recipes

I thought I had just watered the ficus tree in the hallway, but when I looked at it this morning, the soil was bone-dry. I gave it a quart of water, but the water quickly raced to the bottom of the pot into the base plate. Within hours, the soil was dry again. It’s a miracle the plant is still alive.

I bought the ficus tree a few weeks after moving into my first Boston apartment. Like me, it’s had several homes in the last 15 years… moving into larger and larger pots. Its current home is a 5 gallon, ceramic planter.

The soil is depleted of nutrients and structure. After several years in the same pot without refreshing the soil, it can no longer hold water. The tree has sucked out every ounce of life from the soil. Sure, I can add fertilizer or plant food to the soil, but it won’t rebuild the soil to help it retain moisture and nutrients to slowly feed the roots.

The same type of soil erosion happens in our gardens and in our farm lands. Plants take the nutrients out of the soil to support their growth. And if we don’t replenish the soil, we can’t continue to grow healthy plants. Many commercial farmers (and home gardeners) opt for chemical fertilizers and amendments to add the nutrients back.

The chemical soil amendments give the requisite nitrogen and phosphorus, and commercial farmers can grow more corn and wheat. But unless the soil is regenerated, these fertilizers are like a crack addiction: the farmers must add more and more to get the same effect. And the sea-life becomes collateral damage. The run-off from these chemically treated fields in the corn belt of the US flows into the Gulf of Mexico, creating algae bloom, depleting oxygen levels in the water, and suffocating sea life. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, where fish no longer survive, spans approximately 7,000 square miles.

Image Credit: Fair Food Fight

A primary tenant of organic, sustainable farming is to maintain healthy soil so that it can regenerate itself without artificial enhancements, and without creating run-off that kills other plants or animals. We can amend our soil naturally, keeping its structure healthy so that we don’t need chemical fertilizers.

Organic and sustainable farming practices implement a variety of methods to maintain soil health: crop rotation, cover crops and compost. Cover crops, such as legumes and clover, are planted in off-seasons to replenish the soil naturally with nitrogen.   For large-scale farmers this also would mean growing a variety of crops (and not just miles and miles of corn), rotating the crops across different plot of land, and letting the land lay fallow every several years.  Unfortunately, most commercial farmers do not do this, nor do government subsidies support this.

For the home gardener, compost offers another option.

Compost is decomposed organic matter, it can be animal scraps (or waste), vegetables or leaves. Compost looks like dirt and has no smell. It can be worked into existing soil to help replenish the nutrients and structure. My compost bin is a receptacle for food scraps, harnessing all the left-over nutrition to feed back into the ground.

Around my house, I have other natural sources of nitrogen. The spent coffee grounds are chock-full of nitrogen, as is the leftover ash from the charcoal grill. I sprinkle these all over the garden in the spring.

As for my ficus tree, I will take it out of its pot, add the old dirt to my compost bin and give it fresh soil.

Banana Bread

The banana peels get tossed into the compost bin. In a few months, I’ll have fresh soil for the garden (and my ficus tree).  It also goes great with a cup of coffee.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or more all-purpose flour)
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
6 tbs. butter
2/3 cup sugar
zest from 1 lemon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
5 bananas - to yield about 1 1/4 cup mashed pulp

1. Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.
2. In an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the lemon zest, vanilla, eggs and banana.
3. Fold in flour.
4. Bake in a greased loaf pan for 1 hour at 350F.

Spring Fever, Part I (Roasted Halibut with Aspargus and Morels)

My favorite produce market has begun stocking its aisles with little seedlings.  I couldn't help myself, and loaded up my cart with the first of the summer/fall crops – leeks, broccoli and Brussels sprouts.

But before I can get these plants into the garden, I have to prepare the vegetable beds.  There's not much left from last summer, just a few haggard leeks that survived the cold winter. 

 
I harvest those, and then with a garden shovel, I turn the soil. I break up clumps of matted down dirt and pull out tangles of old roots that may interfere with the new plants. Once the soil is aerated, I mix in compost.

I didn’t have enough leeks for a side dish, so I opted for a little “vichyssoise” sauce for roasted halibut. I prepared a basic vichyssoise with less chicken stock and some asparagus stems. I added spinach for a bright green pop of color, and sautéed morels to bring out the sweet earthiness of the fish.

Roasted Halibut with Asparagus and Morels

2 halibut fillets
1 tbs. butter
1/4 pound fresh morels
1 small shallot, peeled and diced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 tsp. fresh thyme
1/4 cup red wine
1 tbs. canola oil
1/4 cup red wine

salt pepper and lemon juice to taste

Asparagus Sauce

1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 tbs. butter
2 small leeks, chopped
1/4 cup potatoes, diced
1/4 cup white wine
14 asparagus spears, trimmed, tips reserved
1/2 cup spinach
salt and pepper to taste

1. Make the sauce: Heat butter in a small pot. Sweat leeks and potatoes. Add asparagus (except reserved tips), white wine and chicken broth. Simmer, covered for 15 minutes or until asparagus and potatoes are tender.

2. Put spinach in the bottom of a blender. Pour the sauce base into blender and puree. Season to taste with salt and pepper (and a spot of cream too)

3. Season halibut with salt and pepper.

4. Heat a large skillet over medium high flame. Add 1 tbs. butter. When melted, add the morels, shallots, garlic and thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for 2 minutes without stirring. Stir a little and then continue cooking for a few minutes more. Add the red wine, and continue cooking until almost all the liquid has evaporated. Set aside in a warm place.

5. Heat a second large skillet over high heat. Add canola oil. Pat fish dry and gently press into the pan. Cook for 5 minutes on the first side or until golden brown. Turn over, turn heat to medium and cook for 2 minutes more. Remove fish from pan.

6. Serve halibut with sauce, morels and steamed asparagus.

Creepy Crawlies

I knew it was a mistake… I planted mint in the garden and I didn’t contain it. Mint tends to crawl unabashedly across the garden. Most (smart) people will bury a quart container of mint in the ground. By planting the container in the ground, the roots get protection during the winter months. And the container then contains the roots in the summer to keep the mint at bay.

I, of course, just transplanted the mint directly into the garden, with no means of controlling its growth. When it begins to creep out of control, I yank up the roots, and squelch it back.

If it was only mint that grew this way in my garden, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But now I have other things to contend with… the raspberries, the strawberries, and some lily of the valley. The strawberries went into the garden last year. I only got 4 berries for the entire season, and decided to give them another year to prove their worth. Now, I have potential for about a dozen berries, but they have spread into the tomato and kale patches.

If I let them grow out of control, they will take over the garden, with their roots suffocating other plants, depriving them of water and nutrients. As much as I like raspberries, strawberries and mint, I don’t like them enough to give up lettuces, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

My normal morning routine had been to grab a cup of coffee, head into the garden and take a survey… seeing what’s growing, what’s ready to harvest and pluck out the beginnings of new weeds. Now I head out with a trowel, digging up the roots that have shot up plants above the soil.

Korean BBQ

I first discovered Korean BBQ when I was in culinary school in San Francisco. Some friends took me to Brother’s Café in the Richmond district.  I was unfamiliar with the cuisine, so I let them order for me (and the table).  A few minutes later, the kitchen staff brought out a rack of red hot embers of charcoal and placed them in the cavity of the table, they replaced the cover with an oiled grill.  A few minutes later, a platter of marinated beef and chicken arrived.   We grilled our own meat table-side, and wrapped it in lettuce with rice and miso paste. The table was filled with little salads of seaweed and kimchi. I didn’t realize how good I had it – no other Korean restaurant I’ve been to since had charcoal grills table-side, only gas.

The Korean palate has a lot of similarities with Chinese and Japanese cuisine, which is not surprising given its proximity to both countries… it has the sushi, soups and noodles similar to Japanese, with the spicy kick and preserved vegetables of Northern Chinese. It’s hard to say which way the influence went, did the Koreans influence Japan and China or vice versa. Most Americans are less familiar with Korean cuisine than Chinese or Japanese, and in our myopic view tend to think that Korea was influenced by their neighbors.

Korean BBQ is easy to prepare at home, and if you have a charcoal grill, it’s all the better.

The recipe I use comes from a book I picked up in Singapore 10 years ago, Homestyle Korean Cooking in Pictures, and was published back in 1981. It’s the best I’ve tasted. The unique aspect of this recipe is that it used ground, roasted sesame seeds.

Like the ground rice used in Larp of Chiang Mai, the ground sesame imparts flavor while helping the rest of the marinade cling to the meat. Sesame seeds can be ground in a coffee grinder. Just be sure to clean it thoroughly before and after.

Korean BBQ

I serve this with a cool cucumber salad.

2 lbs meat, either beef short ribs or chicken thighs

4 tbs. Soy sauce

2 tbs. Sugar

4 tbs. Minced scallion

1 ½ tbs. Ground sesame seeds

2 tsp. Garlic 1 tbs. chopped ginger

2 tbs. Sesame oil pepper

2 tbs. sherry or Shaoix Shing Wine.

Marinate meat in remaining ingredients for at least 5 minutes before grilling. Prepare the grill. Grill for 5-10 minutes on all sides or until cooked through.

Spring’s First Harvest

Like last year, the first thing to emerge in my garden is the scallions. Because they are perennials, they come back to life the minute the temperatures rise about freezing. And after a week of warm-ish temperatures, I have enough to harvest some.

Scallions are a staple in my cooking. I love the fresh oniony flavor that is mild enough that I can still have an intimate conversation without offending anyone (including myself). I always have a bunch in the fridge (when I don’t have them in the garden), along with onions, garlic and lemons. And when I cook Asian-style, I usually make a garnish salad or relish with a heavy dose.

The first cutting of the season is more tender than later cuttings. They haven’t been wind-blown and rained on enough to make them hardy. Not a big deal, but I need to be careful not to add them to a dish until the very last minute as they wilt quickly.

Last week, some friends gathered for a pot-luck dinner. I brought Korean marinated chicken thighs, and garnished it with a salad of carrots, cucumbers, Asian pears, and lots and lots of scallions.

Cool Crunchy Salad

1 rib celery, julienne

1 pear, julienne

3 carrot, peeled and julienne

1 cucumber, peeled and julienne

6 scallions, julienne

1 ½ tsp. vinegar

1 ½ tsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. Sugar

1 tbs. sesame oil

½ tsp. salt

Mix everything together.

Carbo-Loading (Recipe: Spaetzle)

 

The Boston Marathon is just around the corner and the elite athletes are tapering their running and increasing their carbs. Our bodies take longer to break down complex carbohydrates, thus giving runners more sustained energy.

I won’t be running the marathon this year (nor have I ever, or likely ever will), but in solidarity with my fellow Bostonians, I will carbo-load with them. One of my favorite starchy side dishes in spaetzle, a German boiled dumpling made with flour, eggs, milk and salt. It couldn’t be easier to make, but it’s a bit of a mess to clean up which is probably why I don’t make it more often.

Though, I usually serve spaetzle with chicken picatta, last night’s dinner was focused on cooking from the larder. I still have a hefty stash of tomatoes from last summer. Since I’m in the home-stretch until I’m knee-deep in tomatoes again, I’ve become more reckless using them in recipes. Some leeks in the crisper drawer were not looking so crisp. I further softened them in butter… the richness of the leeks played well with the spaetzle and offered a nice counterpoint to the acidic brightness of the tomato sauce.

Spaetzle

Spaetzle can be adorned with fresh herbs (such as scallions, basil or sage) or spices (nutmeg is most common). I prefer mine plain.

2 cups flour

2 tsp. salt

¾ cup milk

3 eggs

1 stick butter or 1 cup chicken broth or a combination of the two.

1. Whisk flour and salt together.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs until well beaten, combine with milk.

3. Whisk flour with egg/milk mixture for about 30 seconds, or until just combined. Alternatively, mix in a food processor for 15 seconds. Let rest. 

 
4. When water boils, push spaetzle dough through the spaetzle maker. (You may need to cook them in batches, depending on the size of your pot). Wait until they float to the top and cook for 1 minute more. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and put in butter broth dish.

 

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On the Bone (Recipe: Seared Halibut with Morels and Red Wine)

During the summer between my two years of business school, I had a summer internship in China and traveled with a few of my classmates. Their biggest complaint about the food was that there were too many bones. The Chinese tend to cut meat into chunks, on the bone, and cook it that way. They do this for two reasons. First, it stretches the meat farther. A single chicken, for example, can serve 6-8 people when butchered this way, rather than American 4. But more importantly, meat cooked on the bone tastes better: it has more flavor and is more juicy.

The same is true for fish. The challenge for fish, of course, is that the bones are smaller. They are harder to pick out, and have a greater chance of getting stuck in your throat. When I serve that has been cooked on the bone, I carefully remove the bones in the kitchen before serving. It makes the eating more pleasurable in that you don’t have to cautiously pick around the meat.

When I cooked halibut the other night, I topped it with morels and asparagus. The last thing on my mind were bones… I wanted to savor the earthy, meaty flavor of the spring-time treat. Since I removed the bones in the kitchen, I had nothing to worry about, and could eat with abandon.

Seared Halibut with Morels, Asparagus and Red Wine
2 halibut steaks
1 tbs. butter
1 pound fresh morels
1 large shallot, peeled and diced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 tsp. fresh thyme
1/4 cup dry sherry
1 tbs. canola oil

1 cup red wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
2-4 tbs. butter
1 tbs. fresh parsley

salt pepper and lemon juice to taste

1.  Season halibut with salt and pepper.

2.  Heat a large skillet over medium high flame.  Add 1 tbs. butter.  When melted, add the morels, 1/2 the shallots, garlic and thyme.  Season with salt and pepper.  Cook for 2 minutes wihtout stirring.  Stir a little and then conintue cooking for a few minutes more.  Add the sherry, and continue cooking until the liquid has evaporated.  Set aside in a warm place.

3.  Heat a second large skillet over high heat.  Add canola oil.  Pat fish dry and gently press into the pan. Cook for 5 minutes on the first side or until golden brown.  Turn over, turn heat to medium and cook for 5 minutes more, covered.   Remove fish from pan. Sprinkle parsley on top.

4.  Add the remaining shallots and red wine to the halibut pan.  Let wine reduce to 1/4 cup.  Add the chicken stock and reduce to 1/4 cup.  Remove pan from heat and swirl in butter, more or less to taste.  Season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice.

5.  Gently separate the halibut steak from the bone.  Pull out the main bone in the center, and the small pin bones on the each side.  Run your finger along the insdie of the filet to make sure all bones are removed.  Put the filet back together.

6. Serve halibut with sauce, morels and steamed asparagus.

Trial and (a lot of) Error

If it’s true that you learn from your mistakes, I should be bordering on genius. As I begin my 8th season as an urban gardener, I recall all the things I’ve learned along the way. I’ve shared some key tips for the beginning home gardener on Katie’s site goodLife {eats}. She has a new weekly feature, titled “Grow. Cook. Eat.” I love the name, and since we clearly have so much in common, she invited me to write a guest post. Check it out here.

In general, I share thoughts on how to get started with your own garden. One of the specific questions she asked me to address was, “What are the best plants to grow?” This one I evaded, as it’s nearly impossible to give specific ideas. Grow what you like to eat!

Here are some of the bigger lessons I’ve learned over the years….


Don’t crowd the plants
I’ve made this mistake in various incarnations.

The first way is that I over-plant lettuces seeds. The seeds are so small that it’s hard to only plant two seeds per inch. This year was no different, and again, I will be out in the garden this weekend with my scissors thinning the lettuces.

The other is planting seedlings. The tomato label says, for example, plant seedlings 36” inches apart, and I’ll space them 24” inches, sometimes less. I’m trying to cram as many plants into the garden as possible. Then, I wonder why my tomatoes don’t grow very big. Over the years, I’ve gotten better about properly spacing vegetable plants. And what I’ve lost from having less plants, I’ve gained in larger vegetables and better yields.

I just purchased an injector seed-sower that should help me in the future.

I have micro-climates in my yard
I usually buy a six-pack of basil seedlings, and fit them into the garden wherever I can. Not all patches of soil are created equal, and the basil thrived in some corners and not others. I don’t know why the basil grows better in some patches than others, but I’ve made notes as to where it grows best.


Be Patient
On March 5th (this year), I planted lettuces, beets, kale and kohlrabi. I was heading out of town for two weeks and expected that when I came home, I would see tiny sprouts shooting up all over the garden. Instead, I found paw prints right along the rows I had planted. I assumed that a critter (or two) had come in and eaten every seed.

The next day, I bought some new seeds and replanted everything. And I decided to plant a few new things too – I had seen radishes at the garden center, and thought I should try those. I reconfigured what I planted where… decided the kohlrabi would be better where the kale was, and the kale would work better next to the garlic. The beets and radishes would go where the kohlrabi had originally been planted.

And the day after that…. A carpet of green sprouts spread across the garden. In fact, the seeds I had planted two and a half weeks prior had, in fact, sprouted!

Which leads me to my final point:

Label what you plant
I used to have a memory like an elephant. I’d plants seeds all around my yard and remember what I planted where. As my memory started to fade, I justified my lazy ways by telling myself “The plants will present themselves. When they grow big enough, I’ll be able to identify them, so it won’t really matter.”

Well, the plants don’t always tell you what they are, especially if they are root vegetables. And if you don’t know what they are, you don’t know when to harvest them.

And now with the current mess of plants in my garden, I don’t know what I have growing where. I know I need to thin the sprouts so they have enough room to grow… but am I thinning beets which need 6 inches, or kohlrabi that needs 12, or radishes that need 4???

It’s always an adventure, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of vegetables to eat starting next month. I’m just not sure what it will be.

What have you learned from your garden?

Happy Gardening!