52foods – Page 7 – Lucky Mike's The Good Life

March 18, 2011June 4, 2011

52 Foods Week Eleven: Deglet Noor Dates

Just east of Palm Springs and the jutting San Jacinto Mountains, lies the Coachella Valley. Known to many as the home of a large music festival, it is also the largest date producing region outside of the Middle East. Two winters ago, we visited the valley and stopped at Shields Date Garden, in Indio, CA, whose small store is as much a paean to the date as it is a retail outlet. At Shields we tasted nearly a dozen date varietals, most of which are difficult—if not impossible—to find in grocery stores outside the valley. Because a trip to Indio is impractical on an average Saturday morning, I was thrilled to discover Siegfried Dates at the farmers’ market. They offer many date varietals from Coachella growers, including some delicious Deglet Noors from Leja Farms.

Deglet Noors are a fairly robust date varietal, recommended for cooking. While we were selecting out dates, another purchaser mentioned she was going to use her Deglet Noors in a pork dish, and leaving the market, we initially had similar ideas; however, when I realized that Monday was Pi Day, my thoughts turned to baking a date-pecan pie.

Based on a quick Google search, there seems to be a canonical date-pecan pie recipe, sourced of all places from Cooking Light. I am a bit skeptical about the “light” claims for this pie, but my wife assures me that the recipe is “light for a pie.” As I am far more versed in eating pies than baking them, I am trusting her on this point, but I would consult your a nutritionist or physician before making this, if calories and fat are a mortal concern.

Using a pretty good store bought pie crust (again, I am not a baker) makes this recipe ridiculously easy. I chopped the dates and pecans (Pawnee pecans from Chico, CA), then sprinkled them evenly on the bottom of the pie crust.

For the rest of the filling, I mixed brown sugar, molasses (which I used to replaced the dark corn syrup the recipe calls for), eggs, a little flour and a touch of vanilla and salt. When poured into the pie crust, this lifted the date and pecan pieces, suspending them in a rich, dark mixture of fat and sugar.

I baked the pie for 45 minutes, then removed it and added a layer of whole pecans to the top. It needed about 15 more minutes in the oven to finish.

I think the pie came out looking pretty sharp.

We served the finished pie with a healthy dollop of unsweetened whipped cream.

To complement it, we opened a cellared bottle of Full Sail Brewing’s 2009’s Black Gold Imperial Stout, a delicious, bourbon barrel aged imperial stout from one of Oregon’s premiere breweries.

2009 Full Sail Black Gold Imperial Stout

This is an awesome pie recipe, and I consider this a first run with it. I found the cup and a half of molasses to be a bit too strong, and in the future I plan to try a half cup of molasses and a 1/2 cup of bourbon brown sugar simple syrup (1/2 cup brown sugar dissolved in 1/4 cup bourbon). I also have a strong desire to add a little chopped bacon to the filling. The pork-date alliance is too strong to resist.

The pie making is documented in full here.

March 10, 2011June 4, 2011

52 Foods Week Ten: Shitaki Mushrooms

Sometimes the most important thing you cook is a side dish. We were invited to a pork dinner that we knew would be fantastic. The hog itself, tucked into our friends’ industrial freezer, was already stuff of legend. All we had to do was choose whether to bring a side or a dessert. We chose side.

Browsing the Farmers’ Market the morning of the meal, I happened upon some glorious shitaki mushrooms. I’m generally bullish on mushrooms of all kinds, and the shitakis that Solano Mushroom sells may be the most impressive I’ve seen. They were nice and full and appeared to have been very gently handled. I happily snapped up half a pound of them, then browsed the other tables to figure out what I was going to cook with them. Visiting the folks at Capay Organic, again, I picked up two bunches of rosy chard, as well as some collard greens for a Fifty Two Foods practice run.

Having both leafy greens and mushrooms in hand made for an obvious choice—creamed chard with mushrooms—since mushrooms take to cream so well, and there’s nothing quite like creamed chard for a hearty yet refreshing side dish.

I sliced the shitakis into good sized slices, then sautÃ©ed them in butter and garlic until they softened and the juices ran out.

The garlic I sliced very thin, and cooked slowly in the butter before adding the mushrooms, allowing it to soften and caramelize a bit. It tasted a lot like roasted garlic, but instead of soft, thick pieces, they were thin and crispy. The garlic alone was absolutely delicious.

In another pan, I sautÃ©ed a minced shallot in olive oil, then added the chard stems, which cooked for 5-10 minutes before I added the roughly chopped chard leaves. I added a bit of white wine, then covered the chard to let it soften for another 10 minutes, or so, before adding the entire contents of the mushroom pan.

Finally, I added two ounces of heavy cream and stirred everything together for a couple minutes.

The shitakis added a fantastic earthy taste to the chard, elevating a dish that already would have been tasty to a profound complexity. It paired very nicely with the pork we had, but could also have served well alongside any roast or grilled meat. Check out all the pictures here.

March 5, 2011June 4, 2011

52 Foods Week Nine: Fennel

There aren’t many foods I have a distinct memory of first discovering. There are, of course, many meals I remember that gave me a new appreciation for a food that was already familiar, but very few instances whereupon having something for the first time I also fell under its spell. For years, I knew nothing of fennel—beyond its seeds, which are key to so many Italian meat dishes—scared off by the fear that the root and stalks would be too licoricey for my taste. That all changed the first time I had roasted fennel root.

About a year after my wife and I began dating, she briefly worked near a weekday farmers’ market. One night she brought home a collection of root vegetables, including a large, milky fennel bulb. While I generally do most of the cooking, the market’s haul were her babies and she prepared a simple meal by roasting the sliced vegetables with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some herbs. Having never before tasted fennel root, I was impressed and relieved by it’s mellow, sweet flavor. It quickly became a regular in our vegetable rotation, especially in the colder months, when hearty, roasted vegetables help to warm the belly.

Since eating at the very tasty Ubuntu Napa a month ago, I’ve been eager to make a meal where a vegetable that is typically served as a side moves center stage. Fennel seemed like a perfect choice, with the bulbs standing in for a shoulder roast, in a slow braised preparation.

I bought 4 medium fennel stalks from Capay Organic at the Davis Farmers’ Market. The bulbs I got were each a nice palm size, allowing them to be easily handled whole.

I washed and trimmed each fennel bulb, and chopped two cherry bomb peppers, a fairly mild pepper varietal that nicely balances sweetness and heat.

I sautÃ©ed the peppers in a few tablespoons of olive oil until their skin began to pucker, then added the fennel bulbs, searing them on each side just as I would a roast.

Once the bulbs were seared on all sides, I placed them upright in the center of the pan, added about 8 ounces of beer (Sudwerk Pilsner) and reduced the heat to low.

The fennel cooked for about 40 minutes, until it was soft but still nicely intact. While they cooked, I took advantage of the plentiful fennel fronds by placing about 4 ounces of them in a pint of vodka to make what I hope will be a heady, dry anisette.

We plated the fennel alongside a spicy potato with mustard seed recipe we got from Sunset, and poured a reduction of the braising liquid over it.

Checkout all the photos here.

February 25, 2011June 4, 2011

52 Foods Week Eight: Lemons

Update: Per Henry’s suggestion in the comments, cooking the lemon low and slow results in even better caramelizing.

I was a little under the weather this week, which put a damper on my enthusiasm for cooking and especially coming up with new ideas. Fortunately, there is one thing I enjoy when I have a cold—a nice hot toddy—that includes lemons, which our generous neighbors have plenty of, and are willing to share.

I didn’t feel it would be right to just make a hot toddy and call the week good, since that would really only entail squeezing a lemon wedge over a cup of hot whiskey, honey and water. I tried to think of something to up the ante, and finally found inspiration in an old memory from college. One night while making mulled wine, a Russian friend showed us a way to eat lemon slices as a snack. She sliced a thin round, covered it in sugar and popped it straight into her mouth, rind and all. We may have been a touch skeptical at first, but we quickly became converts. I figured that I could cover a lemon slice in sugar this way, then caramelize it before adding it to a hot toddy for both a burst of lemon and sweetness.

I sliced a few 1/4 inch thick rounds from a nice fresh lemon. It’s really amazing how good a fresh lemon smells—entirely more fragrant and rich than one that has been sitting in the store. I removed the seeds from each slice, then set them aside to prepare the sugar.

Rather than covering the lemons in just sugar, I decided to mix in some other spices that I like in a toddy, so that they would cook with the sugar and lemons. I chose allspice and cinnamon, but you could use anything you like. I didn’t measure, just tasted the mix a few times until it had the right balance. If I had to guess, I’d say it was about 1/3 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of allspice and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

I dredged each lemon slice in the sugar until they were well coated, then placed them in a sautÃ© pan over medium-high heat. The sugar and juices melted out of the lemons and began to smell slightly of marshmallow after about a minute and a half. I flipped the slices and continued to cook them for about another minute, then removed them and placed them on a cooling rack with paper towels underneath it. I also immediately ran the pan under water to rinse out the melted sugar, which would have been hell to clean if it had cooled.

As the lemons cooled, I sprinkled more of the sugar mixture over them, flipping them once to coat each side.

They took about 10 minutes to cool, which is plenty of time to heat a pot of water, and place whiskey and honey in a mug. I skewered each lemon with a small bamboo skewer and balanced it over the mug, then poured the hot water over the lemon and into the whiskey and honey. Once served, the lemon slice should be slid into the drink to flavor it more and to use as a stir stick.

Caramelized Lemon Hot Toddy:

2 oz. Bourbon
1 tsp. Honey
1 Caramelized Lemon Round
6 oz. Boiling Water

Mix bourbon and honey in a mug. Place skewered lemon round over drink and pour boiling water over lemon into mug. Steep lemon and use to stir drink occasionally.

More photos of the caramelized lemon process are here.

February 19, 2011June 4, 2011

52 Foods Week Seven: Kiwis

The Farmer’s Market can be an odd beast in winter. It seems impossible that five stands could succeed selling nothing but oranges, yet there they are, week after week, with 5 and 10 pound sacks of citrus. Some do buck the trend, selling only apples, for example, another common fruit which is, perhaps, under-represented at the market. Still others carve out more unique positions, like Frank Stenzel’s all Kiwi table.

There is much to admire in the humble kiwi—which is actually a berry, not a fruit—the hairy skin, the lustrous green flesh, the myriad seeds surrounding the white center like an inverted cat’s eye. Of course there is also the flavor. Slightly tart and sweet. Smooth and never cloying. Distinct but accessible. I would be content to eat kiwis plain, but the rules of this project demand that I prepare each food, and so it was, under duress, that we made a tasty kiwi tart.

This excellent recipe calls for a filling of cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and cream, topped with sliced kiwi and a glaze made from apricot preserves, a roll-call of many of my favorite flavors.

Given instructions this simple and beguiling—”Combine cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and cream until smooth.”—there was no need to improvise or interfere. We mixed up two L’Ã‰tranger cocktails, followed the directions, chilled the tart for an hour or so, and attacked.

Two hours may have been a more appropriate chilling time, as the center of our tart had a little trouble holding up when sliced, but honestly, I ate my piece so quickly, I hardly noticed. The most challenging part was pausing to take the photos.