Farmers' Market Goodness

Awesomely fractal romanesco

I always tell people to hit the farmers' market in the last half hour; they always look at me like I'm crazy.  "Won't all of the good stuff be gone?"  Well, I suppose it's possible you'll miss a gem or two, something someone just managed to harvest a few of.  But you get some great deals when you show up at the end--some of these folks won't have another market this week, and they'd rather give their produce to you than throw it out.

My finds this week included a free pile of amazing, juicy, tangelos, a basket of enormous, juicy strawberries, some slender, beautiful sweet carrots, and some heavily discounted romanesco, which the geek in me just loves. Sunday night, I put the carrots and tangelos together to come up with a very nice braised carrot recipe.

Tangelo-braised sweet carrots
1 bunch of fresh sweet carrots, washed and trimmed, but with some greens left
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
~1 tbsp fresh chopped oregano or rosemary
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 cup beef broth
juice of one tangelo

Melt butter in oil over medium heat, toss in garlic and sautee with frequent stirring until just brown.  Add carrots and cook, stirring occasionally, until carrots begin to soften, about seven to ten minutes.  Add herbs, cook a minute or two longer, then add broth and juice.  Season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer until nearly all of the water has evaporated, about ten more minutes.

Fermented Foods

This piece about fermented foods and their recently renewed popularity appeared in my RSS feed last week.  As a disclaimer, it’s not much of a column, really more of an ad for some dude named Andy’s slaw.  Also, it’s written by a chiropractor; you know, the semi-crazy sort who gives nutritional advice.  In this case, though, she’s probably right; I believe that cutting down on probiotics, as well as our new obsession with sterilizing our houses like operating rooms, is doing a great deal of harm to our immune systems.  Heck, it might be behind the recent surge in extreme food allergies.

At any rate, I was immediately reminded of a recent experience with fermented octopus:

Yeah, not so good.  However, my good friend Robert recently hooked me up with a great recipe for fermented peppers that promises to be quite tasty:

What you need
Fresh chilis, as much as you want.
Unprocessed sea salt
An airlock (Google has results for DIY and commercial mason-jar airlocks)


Grind up the chilis, add 8-15% salt by weight.  Put under airlock (Robert recommends using glass marbles to keep chilis below the liquid), and age three months.  Note that you can make a sweeter version of this by adding sugar, but it requires a starter.

Master Chef Casting Call 2011

After a couple of weeks of recipe development, Saturday the 29th of October was go time. Headed to Hollywood for the Master Chef casting call at Le Cordon Bleu on Sunset. I'd auditioned last year and done well, getting a call back for an on-camera interview. A couple of days before the call, I got an email that I was a VIP--scheduled time to show up, no waiting in line. Sweet! Last year, I had to arrive hours ahead of time, and saw the VIPs walking right in. Well, this year it didn't work that way.

For some reason, the casting company decided to do a blog and radio giveaway for what appeared to be a ridiculous amount of VIP passes. Consequently, there was more VIPs than not. Add the fact that the entire casting crew took lunch while I was waiting in the hall, and I was there for like five hours, longer than last year! Finally into the food room, we had two minutes to plate our dish, ready for inspection by two "food experts" and our examination by casting personnel. My annoyance at the wait might have been apparent; although I got very good comments on my food I wasn't selected for a callback that day.

Here's the recipe for what I served the judges, Natchitoches Meat Pies with Cajun Mustard Aioil.

The filling:
1/2 pound ground chuck
1/2 pound ground pork or mild sausage
1/4 pound chicken livers, cleaned and chopped finely
3 large shallots, finely chopped
1 tbsp freshly ground allspice berries
1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 to 1 tsp cayenne pepper
kosher salt, to taste
1/3 stick unsalted butter
1 bunch spinach or collard greens, cut and blanched
Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat, add shallots and sweat, then add meat. Cook until well-browned, stirring frequently and breaking up the meat. Drain and season.

The crust:
1 can evaporated milk (13 oz)
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup shortening
5 cups all-purpose flour
Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl, then whisk milk into egg until well, blended, set to side. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut shortening into the dry ingredients. Add the egg-milk mixture slowly until moist. Do not overwork, or dough may be tough. Form a ball, flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic and chill for at least 1 hour (can hold up to three days), until dough is firm. Roll out to ~1/4 inch thickness, and use a bowl to cut 6-8 inch circles. Fill half with filling, add a few pieces of blanched greens, fold over, and crimp edges with a fork. Deep fry in oil quickly until crust is golden-brown and flaky.
　
The aioli:
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 pinches coarse kosher salt
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbsp spicy brown mustard
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup olive oil
Make a paste with the garlic oil and salt in a mortar and pestle or with the flat of your knife on a cutting board. In a bowl, whisk together garlic paste, cayenne, mustard, egg yolks and lemon juice. Whisking constantly, begin very slowly adding oil, starting drop-by-drop for the first 1/4 cup or so. If you overdo it and the emulsion separates, stop adding oil and whisk until it comes back together. Chill and serve.