Caesar Mushroom Salad

                   …not a mushroom Caesar salad.

Each weekly visit to the farmers market brings something new. This week “my” mushroom man Chris Darrah (Mainly Mushrooms) had Caesar mushrooms (Amanta caesarea), something I had never seen before. This mushroom is believed to be a favorite of the Roman emperors, but there’s no way to know for certain. There is the story of Agrippina, the fourth wife of the Emperor Claudius. She had a son Nero from a previous marriage. Having plans for her son in only a way a mother could, she persuaded Claudius to adopt Nero so he would be in line to ascend the throne. No patient woman our Agrippina, she hastened Claudius’s quick demise by preparing a meal of his favorite mushrooms, Amanta caesarea, tossing in some Amanta phalloides, the death cap mushroom, for good measure. There’s your quick lesson in Roman history. (Somewhere there are mycologists laughing, “Amanata phalloides…that’s a good one!”)

Normally I wouldn’t think of using wild mushrooms in a raw preparation. Some, such as morels, are poisonous raw. Chanterelles can produce a reaction in some people and are said to taste unpleasantly peppery when eaten raw. But raw is the preferred method for Caesar mushrooms. The simpler the better appears to be the rule. I have based this recipe on those that appear to be typical of Italian-style Caesar mushroom recipes.

If you don’t have Caesar mushrooms, you could use either white button or crimini mushrooms. It would also be good using warm sautéed mushrooms, either wild -chanterelles or Porcini, for example, or domestic, such as shiitake, oyster- you get the idea. Don’t let the lack of Caesar mushrooms prevent you from making a salad like this one. Unless you don’t like mushrooms, but I don’t think you would have read this far. Feel free to improvise. After all, I did.

Caesar Mushroom Salad                                        

For two servings

¼ pound Caesar Mushrooms

two handfuls baby arugula

3 Tablespoons toasted hazelnuts, finely chopped

shaved Parmesan cheese

1.Prepare the vinaigrette for the salad (recipe below)

2. Wipe the mushrooms clean with a paper towel. Trim off the bottoms of the mushrooms and thinly slice them lengthwise.

3. Place the arugula into a bowl and add the sliced mushrooms. Dress with a few tablespoons of the lemon vinaigrette and mix together. Add the hazelnuts and mix to distribute. Divide the salad between two plates. Using a vegetable peeler, shave some Parmesan cheese over each salad and serve. Hail Caesar.

Lemon Vinaigrette

Juice from ½ lemon, about 1 ½ Tablespoons

1 or 2 small cloves garlic, finely minced

3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ teaspoon salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Place all of the ingredients into a bowl and whisk together. Set aside until needed.

Peach Crostata

In Italy, it’s a crostata. In France, they call it a galette. Both are “freeform,” rustic tarts that can be either sweet or savory. In Italy, crostata recipes can be found dating from the 15^th century. In France, the galette reaches its height with the stylized Galette des Rois, the traditional dessert pastry eaten on Epiphany (“J’aime la galette…*”).

Interestingly, while the word crostata is derived from the Latin crustare, "to encrust," galette is from the Old French galet, or "pebble." Mmmm...pebble..

Well, this is no pebble.

A crostata is easier to make than a pie. You roll the crust, add a filling to the center and bring the dough up around the sides of the filling, leaving the center exposed. Any fruit can be used of course but since freestone peaches are abundant, this week it’s a peach crostata.

Peach Crostata

For one crostata, approximately 9” to 10” round

Needed: pie crust dough for one 9” pie

4 cups peeled, sliced peaches (5 peaches, a little less than 2 pounds)

6 Tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1 egg, beaten

sugar or cinnamon-sugar mix, to decorate the crust

1. Place the peaches into a bowl. Add the sugar and cinnamon and mix together; let stand for 20 to 30

minutes.

2. When you are ready to assemble the crostada, heat oven to 450 degrees. Roll out the crust into a circular shape, about 14” around. Place the dough onto a parchment paper-lined baking tray.

3. Add the cornstarch to the peaches and stir until dissolved. Using a slotted spoon, place the peaches onto the crust, leaving a 2” border around the fruit. Fold the edges of the dough up and onto the peaches. Brush the underside of the folded edges with beaten egg to seal and brush the sides of the crust with the beaten egg. Sprinkle the outside of the crostata with sugar or a mixture of cinnamon & sugar. Pour about half of the remaining peach juices into the crostada. Place the crostata into the oven and bake for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking for 35 to 40 minutes, until the filling is bubbling and has thickened. Remove from the oven and let cool.

And yes, some fine vanilla ice cream would be great on the side.

                                                *“J’aime la galette,

                                                Savez-vous comment?

                                               Quand elle est bien faite

                                               Avec du beurre desans.”  (from a French children’s song)

                                    (Mais s’il vous plait, n’oubliez pas les peches!)

                                                                 --C’est juste pour vous, ma plus juene fille. oxox

      

Farmer's Song: Purple Bean and Potato Salad

  

                                  

                                             “This is my way to say thanks for the meal,

                                                 and I hope there’s no shortage of rain.”*

Farming at any level, whether it’s industrially scaled, mid-sized or small, isn’t easy. There are so many variables and concerns every day of the season. Particularly nagging is the question of will it all work out financially.

In a recent opinion piece written by a farmer and published in the New York Times, the author, himself a farmer, recounted attending a farm to table-style dinner. Sitting with the other farmers who provided the food, talk turned to profit margins and business models. The author admitted to working other jobs just to help make end meet. Yet he persists.

For the small farmer, farmers markets are one way to connect the farmer with the buyer. I always like seeing the activity of people looking, selecting, asking questions, and buying in order to make a meal to share and nourish.

On a recent Saturday I selected ingredients from one farm, Just  Kiddin’ Around Farm, who makes the weekly trip to our market from Germansville, a trip of almost an hour. Just Kiddin’ Around is neighbors with my friends, Mark and Catherine Muszynzski, who run Curious Goods at the Bake Oven Inn restaurant; their menu relies on locally sourced ingredients as often as possible.

The ingredients reflect what I selected but there is plenty of room for substitutions, such as a different variety of potato. The beans could be “plain” green beans, or even wax beans. You could use a sweet onion or even scallions. I left the beans raw; if you use another bean, you can precook them if you desire.

Purple beans get their color from anthocyanins. The bean is not purple all the way through, only on the surface. If you cook them they turn green, so I left them raw in the salad.

Purple Bean and Potato Salad                                                               

For 8 to 10 servings

1 quart Yukon gold potatoes (about 1pound 10 ounces)

1 ½ cups purple beans, sliced into ½ “ pieces

½ cup diced red onion

1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves

½ cup basil, cut into ribbons (chiffonade)

Grated zest of one lemon

1. Rinse the potatoes under cold water and shake dry. Remove any surface blemishes and cut the potatoes into roughly 1” pieces. Place the potatoes into a pot and cover with cold water. Season the water with salt. Cover the pot and place over high heat and cook until tender, about 10 minutes; the point of a knife should just pierce the potato

to the center. Remove from heat and drain in a colander, shaking off excess water. Spread the potatoes in one layer onto a paper towel lined baking tray and let cool. Refrigerate the cooled potatoes until completely chilled.

2. While the potatoes are cooling, make the dressing.

3. When the potatoes are cold, remove them from the refrigerator and place them into a bowl. Add the sliced beans, diced onion, herbs, and lemon zest. Add enough dressing to evenly coat the potato salad; it will take about 3/4^th of the amount you made. Mix together until all of the ingredients are combined. Taste and adjust the seasoning; the potatoes will probably need some extra salt. Cover and refrigerate the salad until serving.

Potato Salad Dressing

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoon red wine vinegar

2  cloves garlic, (to your taste), minced

salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste

1. Place all of the dressing ingredients into a bowl and whisk together until combined. Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed. Transfer the dressing to a container, cover and refrigerate until needed.

           ‘Thanks for the meal, here’s a song that is real, from a kid from the city to you.”*

                                             *Farmer’s Song by Murray McLauchlan

Sweet Corn and Tomato Salad

            “You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then you practice, practice, practice.

             And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”

                        -Charlie Parker

Recipes, like musical compositions, begin life as improvisations. Sometimes they work, or sometimes it’s a matter of rearranging the notes in another way. They are refined with work over time and then eventually written down so that someone else can follow the instructions whether it’s at a piano or the piano in the kitchen, the stove. The “reproduction” of these instructions depends on one’s abilities, one’s technique. When technique and understanding of what you are doing, the “practice, practice, practice” part, becomes internalized you don’t actually “forget all that,” it just doesn’t get in the way any longer, and you can “wail,” well, perhaps in the kitchen at least.

This recipe, like many others, was improvised. I wanted to use summer’s sweet corn and tomatoes as a salad, but how? Corn and tomato both like basil, all right, add that. And they sing with a little bacon thrown in, like a variation of a BLT. But how to bind it together? A vinaigrette is too thin. A ranch-style dressing would do the trick, the mayonnaise in the dressing again hinting at the BLT flavors.
And the "composition" came together.

I urge you to make the ranch dressing and avoid the bottle. I would guess that once you see how easy it is, you too will abandon the bottle, if you haven’t already, and leave behind the dehydrated ingredients and seaweed-derived thickeners—read the ingredients list and see what’s in it that’s not an actual salad dressing ingredient. It doesn’t make it bad, just unnecessary. And if the bottled kind you buy doesn’t come from the refrigerated section of your supermarket, it not fresh at all. Besides, when you make your own dressing, you can alter it and change it to suit your taste. Can’t do that with the bottle.

I chose to use cherry tomatoes. They are abundant this time of year, are super sweet and appear in endless varieties at a farmers market. Of course, you can omit the bacon, if you have to. A friend of ours calls bacon the “gateway” meat often snuck by vegetarians (don’t look away in guilt).

Sweet Corn and Tomato Salad

For 3 to 4 servings, even though my red-haired food co-pilot and I end up polishing this off by our selves. It’s easy to adapt and expand.

3 ears corn

1 cup assorted cherry tomatoes, halved

4 slices crisp bacon

8 to 10 fresh basil leaves

1. If you are using bacon, cook the bacon until crisp and set it aside to drain on paper towels.

2. Shuck and clean the corn. Slice the corn from the cob; stand the corn upright in a bowl and slice down the length of the ear. The corn falls into the bowl and not all over the counter.

Place a sauté pan with ½ cup lightly salted water onto the stove and bring it to a boil. Add the corn and cook the kernels for a minute or two. Drain the corn into a colander; do not rinse. Spread the corn out to cool on a baking tray lined with paper towels. When the corn is cool, transfer it to a bowl to chill completely in the refrigerator.

3. To assemble the salad, place the chilled corn and halved tomatoes into a bowl. Crumble the bacon and tear the basil leaves into the bowl. Mix the salad with enough of the dressing to bind, about half the amount of dressing you made. Serve. It’s summer again.

Ranch Dressing

This is very basic, kept so because of the other flavors in the salad. If you want to make this for everyday use, you might want to consider adding some fresh chopped herbs, such as chives, thyme, or parsley to the basic dressing. It can be modified and flavored to make whatever kind of “ranch style” dressing you’d like it to be. This version is a little thick for salads so you might want to thin it with more buttermilk or milk if you plan to use it as an everyday salad dressing. Its history is recent, in the history of what we eat, dating from the mid 1950’s and popularized at the Hidden Valley Ranch, dude.

½ cup buttermilk

½ cup mayonnaise

1 Tablespoon minced shallot

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon red wine vinegar

salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1. Ready? Take all of the ingredients and whisk them together in a bowl until combined. Taste and adjust for salt and pepper. Transfer the dressing to a container and store in the refrigerator until needed. Now why haven’t you made this from scratch before?

Beer Battered Zucchini, or.....

When I was growing up, orphaned zucchini often found their way onto our doorstep. They were often zucchini that were very large, the “oops this grew too much let's see what you can do with it” baseball bat-sized zucchini.

If you’re looking for something different to do with zucchini, try this: Fry thin slices in a beer batter. The batter will, of course, work for just about anything—green beans, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, okra; you get the idea.

I know fried food aren’t for every day but these crisp-on-the-outside, creamy-on-the-inside “chips” are great to serve to friends along with a preferred cold beverage. My red-haired food co-pilot and I polished off a recent batch despite the promise that we would only eat a few.

They don’t need to be deep-fried. Less than 1” of canola oil will do the job. Use whatever sized pan you have; a larger pan can accommodate more and will get the job done faster but I used a small pot. If you have a small fryer you could fry these outside and keep the “fry odor” out of the house.

Beer Batter

This is adapted from a recipe by Ian Knauer. What might appear to be a small amount of batter will coat about 40 zucchini slices. If you’re having a crazy fry party, increase the recipe.

¼ cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon ancho chili powder (or other chili powder)

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

One medium-sized zucchini or vegetables of your choosing

1. Place a pan onto the stove. Fill it with about 1” canola oil. Heat the pan over medium heat. Line a baking tray with paper towels and set it aside.

2. Place the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk together. Pour in the beer and stir until smooth. The resulting batter should be thin.

3. Slice the zucchini into 1/8” thick slices- a mandolin-style slicer makes this task easier- or, if not using zucchini, prepare the vegetables you have chosen and set them aside.

4. Test the temperature of the oil by frying a small cube of bread in the oil or carefully dropping a drop of water off of your finger into the pot; if it sputters, the oil is ready. (The temperature should be around 375 degrees).

5. Dip the slices into the batter, allowing some of the batter run off and carefully place the slices into the oil. Fry for a minute or so and then turn the slices over, allowing them to cook on the other side. You may have to regulate the heat under the pot if the zucchini appears to be cooking too quickly. When the zucchini slices are evenly brown, remove the slices with a slotted spoon or “spider.” Lay the zucchini slices onto the paper towels to drain and salt them lightly. Repeat until all of the slices are fried. Serve along with a nice cold beverage. It would be a shame to waste the beer leftover from making the batter.

Summer = Crab: Crab and Sweet Corn Risotto

Remembering the great bassist Charlie Haden (1937-2014)

There’s a restaurant expression, which I will cleanup that goes, “You can sell shoe leather if you put crab on top.” And it’s true. Well, not about the shoe leather part but about the appeal of crab selling an entrée.

Crab is a great summer food. If you don’t believe me, try avoiding all of the chain restaurant ads extolling their crab fests/feasts/follies.

While crab can be expensive, watch for it on sale and stretch it over several dinners. I used it in a risotto one night, Singapore noodles on another, and lastly for crab cakes.

For the risotto, I also added some local corn, off the cob. I used the cobs for stock that went to making the risotto, but you don’t have to. In a restaurant-style twist, I also made a corn/ basil butter. Stirred into the risotto at the end, it elevates the flavor. You can skip this step but it’s not difficult.

Crab and Sweet Corn Risotto

Even though I have made risotto for a long time, I still set a timer (for 18 minutes after the wine is added) and cook the risotto while eyeing the timer.

As I said, I used corn stock for this. You could also use bottled clam juice, vegetable stock or a combination of the two. As for the crab, I added it to the risotto without measuring, eyeballing what “looked” like the correct amount. The recipe measurement is a guideline. Hey, who am I to stop you from using more or less?

If you are making the corn stock, begin with that using the corncobs left from the first step of the recipe.

For two servings:

2 ears of corn (3 ears, if making the corn/basil butter)

1 cup crab meat

2/3 cup Arborio rice

3 cups stock (vegetable or clam juice)

2 spring onions (scallions) chopped

½ cup dry white wine

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

2 to 3 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese, optional

olive oil, for cooking

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Husk the corn and remove the corn silk. Hold the ear of corn upright in a bowl and carefully slice down the length of the ear to remove the kernels. Repeat with the second ear of corn. Reserve cobs for the stock. Recipe is below. Set aside the corn kernels for the risotto.

2. Place the broth into a saucepan over medium heat and bring it to a simmer. Keep it at a low simmer as you cook the risotto.

3. Place a second saucepan for the risotto over medium heat. When hot, swirl in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add the spring onions and sweat for 2 to 3 minutes, until tender; adjust heat if necessary. Add the rice and stir to coat it in the olive oil. Pour in the white wine and stir. Stir until the wine is almost absorbed. Ladle about ¼ cup of the hot broth into the rice. Now begins the process of stirring the rice and adding the broth, about ¼ cup at a time. Adjust the heat to keep the risotto at a gentle simmer. Add broth when the liquid is almost absorbed into the rice; stir throughout at this point of the cooking.

4. Continue cooking the risotto by adding more broth as needed. After about 10 minutes cooking time, you won’t need to stir constantly but watch that there is enough broth in the pot and the risotto isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pot. At this point, add the corn to the risotto. You may need to add additional stock. Season with some salt and continue cooking.

5. After about 18 minutes total cooking time, taste the risotto. The rice should be firm but it shouldn’t have any undercooked crunch to it. If it does, continue cooking for a few more minutes.

6. When the risotto is al dente, remove risotto from heat. Stir in the crabmeat and the reserved crab/basil butter, if using; if not add the unsalted butter. Add the Parmesan cheese, if using. Check the seasoning for salt and add freshly ground black pepper and stir. Cover the pot and set it aside for two minutes. After two minutes, check the risotto. Add a little extra broth if you like your risotto a little loose.

Portion the risotto into two bowls. Drizzle each with a little extra virgin olive oil and serve.

Corn Stock

Corncobs from the corn

¼ onion, chopped (or the green parts from the spring onion)

1 carrot, sliced

2 stalks celery

½ teaspoon salt

5 to 6 cups cold water

1. Place all of the vegetables into a pot large enough to hold them. Fill with water to cover; season with salt. Place the pot over hot water and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until reduced by 1/3.  The stock should have a good corn flavor; if not, cook a little longer. Remove from heat and strain through a colander, reserving the liquid; discard the solids. Taste and add additional salt if necessary.

Corn/Basil Butter

This can be made ahead of time and set aside until needed.

For two servings:

Corn kernels from one ear of corn

½ cup water

½ teaspoon salt

6 to 8 fresh basil leaves

1 teaspoon chopped chives

2 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter

1. Place the cold water and salt into a saucepan and place the pan over high heat. Bring to a boil, add the corn and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook the corn until tender, about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the corn from the heat. Let it stand for a minute or two then puree it in a blender or with an immersion blender until smooth. Add the herbs and continue to blend until smooth. Add the cold butter at the end and blend until the butter is emulsified into the sauce. Set the butter aside until needed.

A recipe for Singapore Noodles with Crab will follow in the future.

Summer = Corn Grilled Chicken with Corn Salsa

The first of our local corn is arriving. Used as a key ingredient of a salsa along with some other flavors of season, this will put summer smack dab onto your plate.

This was largely improvised but the measurements are fairly close to what I used. Don’t get hung up on exact amounts in a recipe like this one. What is a medium-sized tomato anyway? If yours is bigger than mine and you have more tomato in your salsa, it will still taste great. Free yourself and allow your judgment and taste inform you.

Instead of a raw corn salsa, I cooked the corn first. When I drained the corn after it was done, I didn’t rinse it opting instead to spread in out onto a paper towel-lined baking tray to cool, then transferred it to a bowl and then to the refrigerator.

This recipe is for two servings. It might seem like a lot but it wasn’t just used as salsa but also as our “vegetable” as well. I grilled chicken for this but it would work with just about anything. And like all things should be in the summer, this is easy.

Grilled Chicken with Corn Salsa

For two servings

2 ears corn

1 medium tomato

¼ cup diced red bell pepper

2 to 3 Tablespoons minced onion

juice of one lime

hot sauce, to taste

salt and ground black pepper

6 to 8 basil leaves, cut into ribbons (about ¼ cup fresh basil)

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1. Husk the corn and remove the silk. Hold an ear of corn in a bowl as you carefully slice the corn off the cob. Repeat with the second ear of corn. Place a sauté pan filled with ½ cup lightly salted water onto the stove over high heat. When the water comes to a boil, add the corn, reduce the corn and cook the corn for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and drain the corn into a strainer, shaking excess water from the corm. Spread the corn out onto a paper towel-lined baking tray and allow to cool. Transfer the cooled corn to a bowl, cover and refrigerate.

2. Remove the stem from the tomato. Slice the tomato in half lengthwise, and cut each half into thirds or quarters, depending on the size of your tomato. Remove the center part with the seeds and discard. (You can place the discarded bits into a strainer and let the juices drip into a bowl and add them to the salsa.)  Slice the remaining tomato pieces into strips then cut them crosswise. Place the diced tomato pieces into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients, along with the corn. Season with salt and black pepper and mix until combined. Cover and let the salsa stand allowing the flavors to combine.

Grilled Chicken

This marinade for the chicken is my “go to” marinade suitable with any meat. Sometimes I will include some lemon juice and a chopped fresh herb, such as thyme but since the salsa has basil and lime juice, I omitted them this time. I prefer to salt the chicken as it cooks instead of including salt in the marinade. Again, this is improvised based on experience but the amounts should get you started. Feel free to improvise with in the future. Just don’t reach for the bottled dressing as a marinade anymore. Have you read the ingredient label?

For two servings

8 to 12 ounces boneless skinless chicken breast

2 to 3 Tablespoons olive oil

1 to 2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 Tablespoon minced shallot (you can substitute with onion)

ground black pepper

red pepper flakes, optional, to taste

1. Trim the chicken breasts, if necessary. Carefully slice the chicken breast into cutlets, depending on the size and thickness of the breast. Place the chicken into the bowl with the marinade and mix to cover the chicken with the marinade. Wash hands. Cover the bowl and set aside. If you are not going to cook the chicken in 20 minutes or so, refrigerate the chicken.

2. Heat grill and when it’s hot remove the chicken from the marinade. Place the chicken on grill, season with salt, and cook for about 4 to 5 minutes, then turn and finish cooking on the other side. Since the chicken has been sliced into thinner pieces, it will cook faster. Remove chicken from grill.

3. Spoon salsa onto the bottom of two plates. Top with the chicken and top the chicken with additional salsa. Summer is served.