Wright Eats

I spend all year dreaming about summer produce, especially our local Washington fruit.  For a couple weeks now, I’ve gone strawberry-crazy, making ice cream, jam, and eating them plain with a touch of our really nice balsamic from Italy, which is sadly almost gone.

I was about to make a strawberry tart this weekend, when I realized that cherry season is quickly slipping away!  Next week is already the last week of sour cherries from Mair Farm-Taki at the U-District market.  Why does it all come at the exact same time, and in spades?  I spend twice as much time in the kitchen in the summertime, it seems.  Not wanting to miss out, I grabbed a bunch of cherries this weekend, and we have quickly switched over to cherries in everything.

We had a breakfast of cherry baby dutch pancake, with Skagit River Ranch bacon.  Dessert tonight was a sour cherry almond cobbler.  Plans for the next week include salmon with grilled sweet onions, sweet cherries, and balsamic; David Tanis’ cherry-almond clafoutis (from A Platter of Figs), and Jerry Traunfeld’s goat cheese handkerchiefs with tart cherries and sage (from The Herbal Kitchen).

And then it’s on to apricots, peaches, blueberries, and blackberries.

Sour Cherry Almond Cobbler
Adapted from Ripe for Dessert, by David Lebovitz
Serves 8

David’s recipe uses sweet cherries, but I love the bracing tartness of sour cherries in my pies and cobblers.

For the filling:
5 cups sour cherries, stemmed and pitted (about 2 pounds)
1 cup sugar
3½ tablespoons cornstarch

For the topping:
7 ounces almond paste
1/3 cup sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg, at room temperature
½ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
1 cup flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup whole milk

Position the oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the filling: Mix the cherries with 1 cup of sugar and the cornstarch and arrange them in an even layer in a shallow 2-quart baking dish.

To make the topping: Beat together the almond paste and the 1/3 cup of sugar, until the almond paste is finely broken up.  Beat in the butter, then beat in the egg and the vanilla or almond extract.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter and almond paste mixture, stir in the milk, and finally the remaining dry ingredients.

Spoon the batter evenly over the cherries in the baking dish and bake for 45 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

For some reason, I always thought tamales would be hard to make, but they turn out to be easy work with a group of friends over margaritas.  We first met Kathy around the holidays a number of years ago, and she promised that one year she’d share her recipes and show us how.  It’s been part of her annual Christmas tradition for years.

This was the year for our tamalada (tamale making party).  After one raincheck (snowcheck?) on account of Seattle’s crazy winter weather, we finally gathered at Kathy’s house just after Christmas.  Joining us and Kathy (our tamalera, or tamale expert) were a group of dedicated foodies:  Kathy’s husband Patrick (retired and part-time “volunteer” at Salumi), along with our friends Catherine (Queso y Vino owner, and food blogger extraordinaire), her husband Ken (wine distributor and chef), and Eric and Kye (IMO, the couple most qualified to write a food blog who don’t actually have one).

Everyone brought something to contribute, and when you have eight people this dedicated to food in one room, it turns out to make for some awesome tamale fixin’s.  Not only were we stuffed after dinner, but we each went home with ten kinds of tamales, plus sweet dessert tamales.

Eric and I brought Mangalitsa carne picada filling with red mole, along with the sweet tamale filling: golden and black raisins stewed in rum.  Everyone else arrived with fillings too: duck with mole, roasted poblano rajas con queso, chicken and green chili, roasted yams and queso, spicy pastilla mushrooms, pork rib adobada, mushrooms with epazote y queso, and carnitas.

We made two types of tamale masa (plus the dessert masa, which was an adaptation of a recipe we found online).  Kathy started demonstrating with the sweet potato masa, showing us the secret she learned for keeping the tamale soft, fluffy and not too dense: at least 15 minutes beating in a stand mixer.

Next we made the lard version.  I had brought some homemade lard rendered from Mangalitsa fatback, which we mixed in with the fresh masa Kathy had purchased from the Pike Place Market outpost of La Mexicana Tortilla Factory.

Then we got to work wrapping the tamales, some with corn husks and others with banana leaves.  I thought there would be some kind of magic trick to wrapping them, but it wasn’t too difficult, and everyone seemed to develop their own technique and cute corn husk bows.

While we waited for the first batch to finish steaming (which requires almost an hour and a half), we noshed on homemade salsas, guacamole, and chips washed down with Kathy’s delicious blood orange margaritas.  Once the tamales were done, we sat down, enjoying them with red chili sauce on top and beans alongside.  They were among the best tamales I’ve eaten – I’m thinking that this might become a holiday tradition of our own.

For more photos of the evening, hop over to our Flickr stream.

Homemade Lard

Cut good quality leaf fat (preferred) or back fat into chunks.  Puree the chunks into a paste using a food processor.  Transfer to a Dutch oven or heavy pot, and leave it uncovered in a 250-degree oven for several hours, stirring periodically.  It’s done when you have a clear liquid with crisp brown cracklings on top.  Strain the liquid into containers and refrigerate up to three months or freeze up to a year.

Lard Tamale Masa
Adapted from Mexico: One Plate at a Time, by Rick Bayless

10 oz. lard or Crisco shortening
2 lb. fresh masa (4 cups) or 3½ cups dried masa harina for tamales mixed with 2¼ cups hot water (prep ahead of time and let sit for 20-30 minutes)
1½ teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1½ cups chicken broth

With a stand mixer, beat lard or shortening with salt and baking powder until light in texture, about one minute.  Continue beating as you add the masa in three additions.  Reduce speed and add one cup of broth, continue beating 3-4 minutes, then add the last half cup of broth.  Total mixing time should be 15-20 minutes.

Sweet Potato Tamale Masa

Roast one sweet potato (baked or diced).  Follow instructions above, adding half the potato at a time with the broth.

Red Chili Sauce
From Elena’s Secrets of Mexican Cooking, by Elena Zelayeta

12 large dried red chilies. Using a few different varieties is best.
1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon salt
4 cloves garlic
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce or 3 oz. can tomato paste
2 tablespoons canola oil

Remove the stems and seeds from the chiles and dry toast 3-4 minutes in a skillet to release the oils.  Add to blender jar and cover with 4-5 cups of water.  Soak for 30+ minutes.

Add the next four ingredients to the blender and blend on high for 3-4 minutes.  Strain.

Heat oil in a sauce pan or skillet.  Add chili mixture into the hot oil and cook for 4-5 minutes until the color deepens.  Taste for salt and/or sugar.  Simmer 15-20 minutes.

This year, I went on a bit of a canning craze.  I’d actually never canned in my life before this year, but was “forced” into it by the bounty of fruit we received from our CSA.  We’ve done a CSA for years, but stopped doing it for the last couple years after the Pike Place Market stopped offering theirs.  We settled into a weekly routine of heading to the U-District market for our produce instead, which we were quite content with.

One of our favorite stands at the market is Tiny’s, since I love stone fruits and they are among the best and offer theirs for the longest season.  They have an amazing variety of plums, peaches, and cherries, along with melons, apples, and more.  So when I found out that they offer a CSA, I thought maybe we’d finally found a good replacement for the Pike Place CSA – local, good quality produce, and best of all, a much higher proportion of fruits than most CSAs.  I love snacking on fruit, and that was my one wish for the Pike Place CSA: more fruit.

Be careful what you ask for.  Every week, Tiny’s supplied us with the juiciest, most delicious fruit, at least several pounds per week.  And soon we had fruit coming out our ears, it seemed, and I was getting a little tired of plums, so I needed to start getting more creative.  Through the summer, we ate fruit sliced on our grilled fish and meat.  I made plum financiers, and peach crisps (not to mention enough zucchini bread to feed an army!).  But it wasn’t enough to keep up.

So I finally pulled out my jam book, Mes Confitures.  I was determined not to let the fruit go to waste, and preserves seemed just the thing.  And this book has some creative and tasty jam recipes.  This season, I made strawberry jam with mint and cracked black pepper, plum and rhubarb jam, peach jam with lemon verbena, pluot jam, and plum and apple jam with anise and vanilla bean.  I shared the jars with our neighbors and started collecting them to give as gifts for Christmas.

But when I started packaging the gifts, I realized that there was one kind missing: orange marmalade.  My dad’s favorite spread is this, and he even likes to ask for a jar sometimes for Christmas.  I’ve given him jars in the past, but never my own, even though I’ve had a marmalade recipe filed away that I’d clipped out of the newspaper years ago.  I was always a little nervous about making it because I’d never canned before and thought giving my family spoiled jam might not be the best Christmas gift.

Now that I’d learned how to preserve jams though, the recipe no longer looked very hard at all.  Four simple ingredients: oranges, sugar, water, and a touch of lemon.  It turned out to be as easy as the author, Greg Atkinson, says.  And it tastes better than any marmalade I’ve purchased.  I hope my dad enjoys his marmalade this year!

Here is Greg Atkinson’s recipe.  Check out the original newspaper article for his other recipes for maple and honey granola and ginger biscotti.

Satsuma Mandarin Orange Marmalade
by Greg Atkinson
Makes six half-pints

9 medium-sized mandarin oranges
2 cups water
¼ cup lemon juice
4 cups sugar

Peel the oranges and set the fruit and peel aside separately. Slice enough of the skins into fine julienne strips to measure 2 cups. In a large kettle over high heat, boil the sliced orange peel in water for 5 minutes. (If you want to make a marmalade that’s less bitter, pour the water in which the peels were boiled into a measuring cup and replace it with the same amount of fresh water.)

Meanwhile, sterilize six half-pint jars in boiling water, and allow them to simmer on low heat, undisturbed while you make the marmalade.

With the metal blade in the work bowl of a food processor, puree the fruit of the oranges and the lemon juice, then add this pulp and juice mixture to the mixture of orange peel and water. When the whole mixture reaches a lively boil, add the sugar and cook, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes, or until the marmalade has thickened slightly and a candy thermometer registers 220 degrees.

Transfer the marmalade to jars and seal with clean, new, two-part lids. Return the filled jars to the hot water bath where they were sterilized and let the jars simmer for 5 minutes. Allow the marmalade to stand undisturbed for several hours or overnight. Sealed jars will keep in a cool, dark place for a year; any jars that do not seal may be kept in the refrigerator.

Note: If you want to make more than just a few jars, make two or three batches in a row. If you try to double the recipe, it will not work as well.

Our friend Arathi likes to bake, even more than I do, which I hadn’t thought possible.  And anyone who’s lucky enough to work with her husband (like me) benefits from when she bakes too many cookies and he brings a batch to share.  After I tried her rusks, I had to get her recipe.  Like biscotti, they are twice-baked dry cookies/biscuits, not too sweet, and perfect for enjoying with your morning coffee or dipping into tea.  We also found that they go nicely with a glass of eggnog!

Greg’s Favorite Rusks
From The Farmhouse Cookbook, by Susan Herrmann Loomis
Makes about 80 rusks

2 cups whole almonds
2 cups sugar
5½  cups unbleached all purpose flour
¾ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350F. Place almonds in a baking pan large enough to hold them in a single layer, and toast, stirring once, until they give off a toasted aroma, 10 to 15 minutes.

Raise the oven temperature to 375F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the almonds and 2 tablespoons of the sugar in a food processor, and grind to a fine powder.

Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together onto a piece of waxed paper.

Cream butter and remaining sugar in a large bowl until pale yellow and light. Add the sour cream and the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the flour mixture and the almonds until just incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and pat it out to form a 13 x 4-inch rectangle that is ¾ inch thick. Cut the rectangle in half lengthwise, so you have two pieces of dough measuring 13 x 2 inches, and transfer them to the prepared baking sheets. Bake in the center of the oven until golden, puffed, and firm, about 35 minutes. Slide the parchment paper onto wire racks, and cool the strips until they are lukewarm, about 15 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 300F.

Slice the strips crosswise into ½ inch thick slices, and lay them on their side on the parchment. Return the paper to the baking sheets, and bake slices until they are golden, 15 to 20 minutes. Turn and bake until golden on the other side, another 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the rusks to wire racks to cool.

I nearly let strawberry season slip away without making my absolute favorite ice cream.  When Eric went to the market on Saturday he heard people talking about how it was the last weekend for strawberries, so he came home with a half flat for me.  I made a small batch of strawberry preserves with black pepper and mint, along with a double batch of Jerry Traunfeld’s strawberry rose geranium ice cream.  You can find the ice cream recipe in an earlier blog posting here.

Something about rose geranium makes berries taste even more intense, and this recipe has become almost an annual summer tradition for us since The Herbal Kitchen was published.  We have a huge gangly rose geranium plant whose sole reason for existence is this recipe (so if you want any leaves, let us know).  Know of any other great recipes we should try with it next?

As I found out when a part on my ice cream maker broke after the first batch, if you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can still make this recipe.  It won’t be quite as smooth as when made in an ice cream maker, but still creamy and delicious.  Just freeze a metal 13×9″ pan, pour in the mix, and place in the freezer.  Take it out and stir every half hour or so with a pastry scraper.  It will take several hours to freeze.

On a beautiful summer day like today, nothing beats a tall glass of lemonade.  I came across a recipe online years ago called “Best Ever Lemonade” and I’m convinced that it really is.  The trick is steeping the lemon rinds in boiling water to extract the tart lemon flavor, before combining it with the lemon juice.  Here is my slightly simplified version of the recipe:

Best Ever Lemonade

4 lemons
1 cup sugar
1 quart water

Halve and juice the lemons.  Set the juice aside and place the lemon rinds into a large bowl.  Cover with sugar and let stand for half an hour.  Meanwhile, boil the water, then pour the hot water over the lemons and stir to dissolve the sugar.  When cool, take out the rinds and strain the sugar water into a pitcher.  Stir in the lemon juice.  Chill and serve over ice.

Adaptations: Add four 4-inch sprigs of fresh rosemary or eight lavender sprigs into the hot water with the lemon rinds to make Rosemary Lemonade or Lavender Lemonade.

A recent farm basket from Tiny’s Organics included some beautiful fava beans.  Dawn and I look forward to favas each spring, and we ordered them at restaurants around town whenever we could this past month.  Now that we had our own, I spent an hour peeling them, twice – once for the outer pod, which provides a spongy cushion for the beans, and then again for the shell around each individual fava.  Talk about packaging!  But it’s worth the effort.

Since it was such a nice summer day, I wanted something to snack on while relaxing in the back yard.  I looked at what we had in our kitchen, and decided to make fava bean crostini with pecorino and mint.  It went well with a glass of Commanderie de la Bargemone 2007 Coteaux d’Aix en Provence Rosé (a great recommendation from Catherine while we were shopping at Bella Cosa).

Fava Bean Crostini with Pecorino and Mint
Makes 4 crostini

1.5 lbs fava beans
1 garlic clove
1 lemon
Rustic bread
Mint leaves
Olive oil
Pecorino cheese
Salt
Pepper

Remove the outer and inner fava bean shells.  Blanch favas in salted boiling water for a minute, then strain and run under cold water to prevent beans from cooking further. 

Whisk together 2 tsp lemon juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/8 tsp salt, and pepper.  Taste the vinaigrette and adjust flavor as needed.  Toss the favas with just enough vinaigrette to lightly coat them.

Brush four pieces of 1/2″ thick bread with olive oil, and toast until golden brown.  Slice garlic clove in half, and rub the bread with the garlic.  Chop mint into thin strips.

To assemble: put a single layer of favas on each toast, shave pecorino cheese on top, sprinkle mint strips, drizzle a little olive oil, and crack pepper over each toast.

To me, nothing beats pasta made at home.  People think it’s difficult and time consuming, but it’s really one of those things that takes a few times to learn and get the swing of it, and then it’s actually pretty easy to make.  It takes me less than half an hour to go from flour and eggs to fresh noodles for the two of us, including cleanup.

The key to good homemade pasta is good fresh eggs.  We buy ours at the U-District market, usually from Skagit River Ranch or Sea Breeze Farm.  You only need to add flour and you’re on your way.  I’ve seen recipes using olive oil, water, semolina flour, salt, and other things, but I subscribe to the method I learned from Giuliano Hazan, which was passed down from his mother Marcella.  Marcella is an opinionated writer, but many including myself consider her the authority on authentic Italian cooking.  She says:

The basic dough for homemade pasta in the Bolognese-style consists of eggs and soft-wheat flour.  The only other ingredient used is spinach or Swiss chard, required for making green pasta.  No salt, no olive oil, no water are added.  Salt does nothing for the dough, since it will be present in the sauce; olive oil imparts slickness, flawing its texture; water makes it gummy.

I find that unbleached all-purpose flour works really well, and in Italy they typically use 00 soft-wheat flour.  Marcella points out that semolina is primarily used for factory-made pasta, which is in a completely different category than egg pasta:

The boxed, dry pasta one refers to as factory-made includes such familiar shapes as spaghetti, penne, and fusilli.  These cannot be made as successfully at home as they are in commercial pasta plants with industrial equipment.  Dry pasta from factories is not necessarily less fine than the fresh pasta one can make at home.  On the contrary, for many dishes, factory-made pasta is the better choice, although for some others, one may want the particular attributes of homemade pasta.

The Hazans’ cookbooks are great for getting a better feel for which sauces go with egg pasta and which with factory-made pasta.  A good rule of thumb (although there are plenty of exceptions) is to use factory-made pasta for olive oil based sauces and egg pasta for butter and cream based sauces.

Last Saturday evening, I made some fettuccine which we enjoyed with Bolognese sauce from our freezer.  Every once in a while we prepare a big batch of Bolognese so we can make sure we always have some in our freezer for quick meals.

Egg Pasta
Makes 2-3 servings

1 to 1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 eggs

Pour about a cup of the flour into a mound on a wood surface, and set aside the rest to incorporate later if you need more.  Create a hollow in the center of the mound, like a volcano, and break the eggs into the hollow.  Using a fork, beat the eggs lightly while slowly incorporating some of the flour from the walls, a bit at a time until the eggs are no longer runny.  Bring the mound of flour toward the center with your hands and work it together with the eggs.  Incorporate more flour if it is too sticky.  You will know that you’ve added enough flour when you can press a clean finger into the center and it comes away clean.

Using the palm of your hand, knead the dough.  Push forward with the heel of your palm, stretching it a bit, then fold it in half as you pull your hand back toward you.  Turn a quarter turn and repeat this motion of stretching, folding, and turning until the dough is completely smooth, about five minutes.  Immediately wrap the dough in plastic wrap and allow to rest at room temperature for at least 10 minutes.

Set up your hand-crank pasta machine, and lay out a couple clean towels.  Cut the dough into 2-4 equal parts (it’s easier to work with smaller pieces, so start by using four parts).  Leave all but one part wrapped in the plastic wrap.  Flatten the ball of dough with your hand.

With the machine at its widest setting, roll the disk through the machine.  Remove it and fold it in thirds.  With the folds on the sides, roll it through the widest setting 2-3 more times.  Narrow the opening between the rollers by one notch.  Roll the dough through again, just once.  Continue narrowing the opening and rolling through until the pasta is the desired thickness.  When you are about halfway done, the pasta will become very long and unwieldy – you can place it on the towel, cut it in half, and switch between the two pieces each time you narrow the opening.

Allow the pasta sheets to dry for a few minutes on the towels until they are leathery but not too dry or brittle.  Cut strips using a fluted pastry wheel to make pappardelle, or feed it through the machine’s cutting attachment to make fettuccine.

Don’t miss this weekend’s edible plant sale, put on by the Seattle Tilth each spring.  We go each year to pick up plants for our garden (although we will unfortunately miss this year’s sale!), and we’ve learned that you’ve got to get there early for the best selection – the line starts a good half hour before the doors open at 9am on Saturday, May 3.  Bring some empty plant trays, boxes, or a wagon to carry your stash, if you want to bypass the line for purchasing trays.

If you don’t have a garden but have been thinking about starting one, now is a great time to do so.  How much closer to eating locally can you get than walking outside your kitchen door?  Michael Pollan actually had a great column in the New York Times a week ago about climate change and this very topic.  And if you don’t have a green thumb, or want to learn how to work with an edible garden, contact Amy Pennington at Go Go Green Garden.  Amy is a foodie who has recently started her own business doing veggie garden consulting.  I met her when the Dahlia Bakery first opened, when she was the bakery manager.  Now she’s helping people connect with their food by growing it in their own yard.  She can help coach you in getting started, or if gardening really isn’t your thing, she can even plant your garden and harvest the vegetables, leaving a basket of goodies on your doorstep.

For a list of what’s available at this weekend’s plant sale, check out the plant lists.  They’ve got great tomato starts, and lots of herbs which we love to sprinkle about our garden.  We also always make sure we’ve got rose geranium so we can make Jerry Traunfeld’s incredible strawberry ice cream.  The rose geranium isn’t a prominent flavor in the ice cream, but instead enhances the strawberries immensely.  Purchase the rose geranium this weekend and then make this ice cream when strawberries are in season this summer!  Not only is it among the best ice creams we’ve made, but it has no eggs and less fat content than most ice creams, making it a light summer treat.

Strawberry Rose Geranium Ice Cream
From The Herbal Kitchen, by Jerry Traunfeld
Makes 1 quart, 8 servings

2 cups half-and-half
1½ cups sugar
8 medium rose geranium leaves
1½ pints very ripe strawberries

Bring the half-and-half and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan.  Stir in the rose geranium leaves, cover, and remove from the heat.  After about 10 minutes, strain the cream and let it cool.

Wash and hull the strawberries.  Puree them in a blender or food processor until fairly smooth.  You should have 2 cups.

Stir the strawberries and infused cream together and chill in the refrigerator or over ice until cold to the touch.  Freeze in an ice cream maker.  Scoop the ice cream out into a lidded container and store it in the freezer until serving time.

When there is ice cream, there are macaroons.  For years, I wondered what to do with leftover egg whites after making ice cream or a custard dessert.  Then I hit upon David Lebovitz’s coconut macaroon recipe and no longer have this problem.  These macaroons are what you imagine the perfect macaroon to be – chewy inside, toasted coconut outside, with a touch of honey flavor.  Now, I sometimes find myself wondering what sort of egg yolk recipe I can make just so that I can have some leftover egg whites.

Since we made ice cream on Saturday, I made a batch of macaroons yesterday afternoon.  Dipped in chocolate, they’re about the best use of egg whites I’ve found.

Coconut and Chocolate Macaroons
From Room for Dessert, by David Lebovitz
Makes 30 Cookies

4 large egg whites
1¼ cups sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
2½ cups unsweetened coconut (see note)
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

In a large skillet, mix together the egg whites, sugar, salt, honey, coconut and flour.

Heat over low-to-moderate heat on the stovetop, stirring constantly, scraping the bottom as you stir.

When the mixture just begins to scorch at the bottom, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Transfer to a bowl to cool to room temperature.

(At this point, the mixture can be chilled for up to one week, or frozen for up to two months.)

When ready to bake, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Form the dough into 1½-inch mounds with your fingers evenly spaced on the baking sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cool completely.

To dip the macaroons in chocolate, melt the chocolate in a clean, dry bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a microwave.) Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap. Dip the bottoms of each cookie in the chocolate and set the cookies on the baking sheet. Refrigerate 5-10 minutes, until the chocolate is set.

Note: We purchase our unsweetened coconut in bulk from Whole Foods.