Asparagus Coins

In the next week or so asparagus should be making its grand entrance at most of the farmers markets here in northeast Ohio. Since we try to buy most of our vegetables from local producers we typically find ourselves scrambling to find good recipes as things come into season. On the whole, I think we’re actually ahead of the game a little bit since we have a couple of seasons under our belt. Always looking to add to the arsenal, this little recipe from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc is about as easy as they come.

I think on the whole the recipe is pretty good; it certainly has plenty of room for free styling if you so choose. I like the fact that there are roughly five ingredients that aren’t oil, salt, pepper, or water. Nothing sucks worse than skipping the mis en place and finding that you don’t have enough of something, (five ingredients make it that much easier to do). Note that the Chive Oil needs to be made the day before. I tried the mandolin on these suckers and found it a little difficult. (I am terrified of shaving off the top of my knuckles.) Make sure you get rid of the toughest parts of the asparagus. If you get thicker pieces they don’t cook up very well. Make sure your asparagus are thin pencil like stalks.

Asparagus Coins

Asparagus Coins
By Thomas Keller Ad Hoc

Chive Oil
1 cup ½ inch pieces chives
1 cup canola oil

Put the chives in a fine mesh basket strainer and run under hot tap water to soften them and remove any chlorophyll taste. Drain them and squeeze as dry as possible.

Put half the chives in a Vita-Mix, add oil just to cover, and blend for 2 minutes. Add half the remaining chives and oil to cover and blend for another 2 minutes. Add the remaining chives and oil and blend for another 2 minutes. Pour into a container and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Place a piece of cheesecloth over a bowl and secure with a rubber band to make a smooth, tight surface. Pour the chive oil onto the cheesecloth and let sit for an hour to allow the oil to drip through.

Remove and discard the cheesecloth; do not wring out the cheesecloth, or it may cloud the oil. Refrigerate the oil in a covered container for 2 days, or freeze for up to 1 month.
Makes about ½ cup

Parsley Water
6 Tbs water
1 tsp canola oil
1 Tbs honey
3 cups flat-leaf parsley leaves and tender stems, washed and patted thoroughly dry

Pour the water into a small bowl and freeze until the water is ice-cold.

Heat a medium frying pan over medium-high heat until hot. Add the oil and swirl to coat the pan. Add the honey and heat to melt and lightly caramelize it for a few seconds. Add the parsley with the honey and wilt it, about 30 seconds. Transfer the contents of the pan to the ice-cold water to chill the parsley leaves.

Transfer the parsley and liquid to a Vita-Mix and blend until smooth. Strain through a fine mesh basket strainer into a storage container. The parsley water can be refrigerated for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 1 month.
Makes a scant ½ cup

Asparagus Coins
1 ½ lbs. pencil-thin asparagus
3 Tbs chive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup Parsley Water

Divide the asparagus in half and bundle each with a rubber band. Snap off the bottom of 1 stalk of asparagus to see where it breaks naturally. Cut across the bunches to trim all of the spears to the same length.

Slice on a Japanese mandolin. Alternatively, you can slice the asparagus with a sharp chef’s knife.

Put the tips in a large frying pan, add the chive oil, season with salt and pepper, and cook over medium heat, swirling the ingredients together, until the tips are coated with oil and begin to sizzle, 1 ½ - 2 minutes. Add the asparagus rounds and cook until the edges look cooked but the centers are still raw. Add 3 tablespoons of the parsley water, stir to coat, and cook until the asparagus is tender, 1 ½ - 2 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, add the remaining parsley water, and stir to coat.
Serves 6

Red Velvet Ice Cream

Hubby loves Red Velvet Cake. I love ice cream. We both love ice cream mixed with cake. Therefore, I decided to see if I could pull off a concoction that married the best of both worlds.

Red Velvet Cake recipes are everywhere…so much so that I was overwhelmed by the options I found on the Internet. Some call for butter, others use oil. Almost all call for a generous serving of red food coloring (Though, I did see at least one recipe that used beets to dye the cake).

I finally settled on a largely reviewed and positively received recipe for Red Velvet Cake from Epicurious.com. I can’t comment on the entire recipe because I stuck strictly to making the cake (sans berries and icing). The cake was surprisingly light and made waaaay more cake then I would ever need for this project. Next time, I’ll cut the recipe in half.

For the ice cream, I went to the source: Dave Lebovitz’ “The Perfect Scoop” and was delighted to find a recipe for Cheesecake Ice Cream. When I went to make the ice cream base I averted almost near disaster after opening the package of cream cheese at 10pm to find that 2 ounces were missing…I must have used some before and forgot about it! A wonderful resource that had I just discovered earlier that day helped me do some quick conversions to account for having less cream cheese than the recipe called for. I tasted the mix before chilling and it was perfect…tasted just like cheesecake.

When it came time to actually make the ice cream, I decided to briefly chill in the freezer the bite size pieces of red velvet cake that I wanted to mix in. I then added them as I transferred the finished ice cream into the container, finding that they broke apart pretty easily.

My husband, the Red velvet cake afficianado, declared that the finished product tasted just like a piece of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, but colder. We augmented the final dish with some buttered pecans and extra pieces of cake. Revisions for the next batch will include adding larger pieces of cake, and possibly some of those yummy pecans.


Cheesecake Ice Cream - Adapted from “The Perfect Scoop” by Dave Lebovitz

6 ounces cream cheese – cut into small pieces
Zest of 1 lemon
¾ cup sour cream
¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons half and half
½ cup sugar
Pinch of salt

Zest lemon directly into a blender; add sour cream, half and half, sugar, salt and cream cheese. Puree until smooth and chill in fridge at least 24 hours.

Churn mix in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. Mix in chilled pieces of red velvet cake as you transfer ice cream from the machine to its container. Freeze, wait patiently and then enjoy!

Crawfish Étouffeé

Hey, I thought we were friends!

When I worked at Muirfield Village Golf Club, there was a creek in front of the third green that had flooded after a heavy rainfall. As a couple of coworkers cleaned silt off of the green there was a call over the radio stating that there was a live scorpion on the green. Needless to say, they don't have scorpions in Columbus, OH, but they do have, what we call crayfish, though not as large (or plentiful) as those down in Louisiana.

Imagine how stoked I was when I got an email from Bay Lobsters announcing a shipment of live crawfish. Since I live in Ohio, any étouffeé I've ever had has been made with shrimp. So I was very excited to get my hands and these little guys, since it isn't something that you can just drive down to the grocery store and buy. While Bay Lobsters does carry the frozen already peeled crawfish tails, everything I've ever read on the subject says that the live critters are the only way to go.

As I drove back home with my 2 1/2 pounds worth of my temporary pets, I could hear them "clacking" away on the floor of the car (in a bag). I have to say that I was dreading the idea of boiling these lively little guys. It was going to be murder on a grand scale. As I heated up the water the crawfish kept climbing out of the bowl and falling onto the floor. While unpleasant at first, the boiling of the mud bugs wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I used John Besh's My New Orleans for the recipe. I think the cool thing about this book is that Besh gives a lot of the building blocks of the New Orleans favorites while also offering some recipes from his French culinary background. There is a lot of nuanced information that you don't seem to get with some of the traditional books.This recipe calls for an entire pound of crawfish tails, but he also has a franco-centric dish that calls for just ten tails. I haven't cooked out of this book that much because it isn't very seasonal for this time of year, but when the strawberries come out this thing will be getting a work out.

The étouffeé was very good, especially the next day. I don't know what it was, but when I do it again I will definitely make it the day before. The spice (which is present but restrained), seems to incorporate itself into the tail meat when it sits overnight. Biting into one of these tails doesn't dispense an immediate and overpowering spice, but a slow crescendo that seems to sneak up on your tongue after you've swallowed the bite. When I ate right after making it, there seemed to be two separate flavors: tail meat and then the other stuff. If you make it let me know which way you prefer it.

Chicken Stock
¼ cup canola oil
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 leek, white part, coarsely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 pound roasted chicken bones and carcasses (Substitute 1 pound of shells from shrimp, blue crab, crawfish, or lobster for Shellfish Stock)
1 bay leaf
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1. Heat the canola oil in a large pot over moderate heat. Cook the onions, celery, carrots, leeks, and garlic, stirring often, until they are soft but not brown, about 3 minutes.

2. Add the shells, the bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns, and 3 quarts water. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce the heat to low and gently simmer, skimming any foam that rises to the surface, until the stock has reduced by half, about 2 hours.

3. Strain through a fine sieve into a container with a cover. Allow the stock to cool, cover and refrigerate, then skim off the fat. Freeze the stock in batches to use later.

Besh suggests putting the stock in an ice cup tray

Basic Louisiana White Rice (Makes about 4 cups)
1 tablespoon chicken fat, extra-virgin olive oil, or butter
1 small onion, minced
1-1/2 cups Louisiana long-grain white rice
3 cups Basic Chicken Stock (see above recipe)
1 bay leaf
1-2 pinches salt

1. Put the fat, oil, or butter and the onions into a medium saucepan and sweat the onions over moderate heat until they are translucent, about 5 minutes. Pour the rice into the pan and stir for 2 minutes. Then add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the bay leaf and salt.

2. Cover the pan with a lid, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 18 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, fluff the rice with a fork, and serve.

Crawfish Étouffeé with Louisiana White Rice

Crawfish Étouffeé (serves 6)
3 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons flour
1 small onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
Half a red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Leaves from two sprigs of fresh thyme
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 small tomato, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 quart Basic Shellfish Stock (see above recipe)
3 tablespoons butter
1 pound peeled crawfish tails (from 2 ½ pounds live)
2 green onions, chopped
2 dashes Worchestershire
2 dashes Tabasco Salt Freshly ground black pepper
3 cups cooked Basic Louisiana Rice (see above recipe)

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk the flour into the very hot oil. It will immediately begin to sizzle and fizz. Keep whisking and reduce the heat to moderate. Continue whisking until the roux takes on a gorgeous dark brown color, about 15 minutes. *I don’t know if I screwed something up but mine only took about half that time* Add the onions, reduce the heat, and cook until the onions caramelize. If you add all the vegetables at the same time, the water that results will boil the onions and their sugars won’t caramelize.

2. When the onions have turned the roux shiny and dark, add the celery, bell peppers, garlic, thyme, cayenne, and paprika. Cook for 5 minutes. Now add the tomatoes and the Shellfish Stock and increase the heat to high.

3. Once the sauce has come to a boil, reduce the heat to moderate and let simmer 5-7 minutes, stirring often. Be careful not to let it burn or stick to the bottom of the pan.

4. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the butter. Add the crawfish tails and green onions. Season with Worcestershire, Tabasco, salt, and black pepper. Once the crawfish tails have heated through, remove the saucepan from the heat.

5. Serve in individual bowl over rice.

Momofuku Pickled Carrots

For Thanksgiving we had ordered the Salad Box from The Chef’s Garden. Looking for something a little out of the ordinary for the special occasion we thought a unique variety leafy greens, some which we knew others we didn’t, would make for a great presentation. As it turned out, it was huge success. But we’d made an executive to save the gorgeous carrots that came in the box.

Chef's Garden Carrots

So we had these beautiful miniature carrots, but hadn’t planned on making anything with them. I knew I didn’t want to chop them up into little pieces. There was no doubt these things were going to be prepared whole. It was their birth rite. These carrots knew from day one they were not some workhorse carrot that was going to get cut into a fine dice. God had big plans for these things.

Since we were headed out of town I decided to try a pickling recipe. It would be perfect. If I started them on Saturday or Sunday slender orange bits of deliciousness would be ripe for the picking when I got home a week later. It was destiny.

David Chang has a pickling recipe in his new book Momofuku. The book is awesome. Usually you get a few stories sprinkled throughout the book with the majority of the pages devoted to recipes; this thing is packed with both. The stories range anywhere from how he became a chef, to the developing philosophy of each restaurant, to the story behind each recipe (my favorite.)

Pickled Carrots

Pickled Carrots
David Chang Momofuku
2 pounds baby carrots (as in infant or dwarf, the whittled and bagged supermarket variety), scrubbed, peeled, and attached and clean them well; it makes for a better presentation. The carrots we get from Satur Farms on Long Island are 5 to 6 inches ong and slender – perfect for our purposes. For larger (but still small) carrots, cut them lengthwise into halves or thirds – they should be a size that’s comfortable to pick up and snack on, though they don’t need to be bite-sized.

• Vinegar Pickles, Master Recipe
• 1 cup water, piping hot from the tap
• ½ cup rice wine vinegar
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 2-1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
• Vegetable or fruit, prepared as indicated

1. Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves.
2. Pack the prepared vegetables into a quart container. Pour the brine over the vegetables, cover, and refrigerate. You can eat the pickles immediately but they will taste better after they’ve had time to sit – 3 to 4 days at a minimum, a week for optimum flavor. Most of these pickles will keep for at least a month, except where noted, though we typically go through them in a week or so after they’ve had a chance to sit and mature.

What to do with a Monster Cauliflower

Yeah, all of that is from a single head of cauliflower

At the Shaker Market I laid eyes on one of the most incredible heads of cauliflower I'd ever seen. They were big and absolutely filled with florets. Usually when I buy cauliflower you get a smaller head and thirty percent of it is usually waste, for this thing I'd say it was closer to fifteen percent. In fact, the one I picked up was just over four pounds and was enough to make this recipe (which calls for 2 heads totaling 4 to 5 pounds.)

Is there a better way to spend a Sunday morning?

Like most everything I've made from the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook, this one is a keeper, (admittedly the only stinker was the chocolate chip cookies, but I think the problem was the amount of flour. I hate baking recipes that use volumes for dry ingredients.)

While this soup is not exactly low fat, it is an irresistible bowl of goodness. I've always found cauliflower to be a pretty boring veggie that is difficult to find good recipes for. As was the case last weekend, the locally grown vegetables at the North Union Farmers Market continues to dwindle, but all of the items used in this recipe can still be found here in Cleveland. This soup is one that should have broad appeal. It's sophisticated enough for the foodie, yet homey enough that my dad wouldn't be afraid to eat it.

Cream of Cauliflower Soup with Red Beet Chips
by Thomas Keller from "Ad Hoc at Home"

• 2 heads cauliflower (4 to 5 pounds total)
• 4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter
• 3/4 C coarsely chopped leeks (white and light green parts only)
• 3/4 C coarsely chopped onion
• 1/4 teaspoon Yellow Curry Powder or Madras curry powder
• Kosher salt
• 2 C milk
• 2 C heavy cream
• 2 cups water
• Peanut or Canola oil for deep-frying
• 1 medium red beet
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
• Torn Croutons (see recipe)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Freshly ground black pepper

1. Remove the leaves from the cauliflower, and cut out the core. Trim off the stems and reserve them. For the garnish, trim 2 cups florets about the the size of a quarter and set aside.
2. Coarsely chop the remaining cauliflower and the stems into 1-inch pieces so that they will cook in the same amount of time. You need 8 cups of cauliflower (reserve any extra for another use).
3. Melt 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, leeks, curry, and coarsely chopped cauliflower, season with 2 teaspoons of salt, cover with a parchment lid, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are almost tender, about 20 minutes. Remove and discard the parchment lid.
4. Pour in the milk, cream, and water, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes, skimming off the foam from time to time.
5. Working in batches, transfer the cauliflower mixture to a Vita-Mix (leave an opening in the lid for the steam to escape). Begin pureeing the cauliflower on the lowest speed and blend, slowly increasing the speed, until smooth and velvety. Check the seasoning and add more salt if needed. Transfer to a large saucepan and keep warm. (The soup can be refrigerated for up to 2 days.)
6. Fill a small deep pot with 1 inch of peanut oil and heat over medium heat to 300 degrees. Set a cooling rack over a baking sheet. Line the rack with paper towels.
7. While the oil heats, peel the beet and slice off about 1/2 inch from the top. Using a Japanese mandoline or other vegetable slicer, slice the beet into rounds that are slightly thicker than paper-thin. Reserve only the full rounds.
8. Carefully add a few beet rounds to the oil and fry, turning them with a wire skimmer or slotted spoon as the edges begin to curl and pressing gently on the chips to keep them submerged. You will see a great deal of bubbling around the beets as the moisture in them evaporates; when the bubbling stops, after 1 to 1-1/2 minutes, the beets will be crisp. Transfer the beets to the paper-towel-lined rack and season with salt. Fry the remaining chips in batches. The chips can be kept warm in a low oven.
9. Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the vinegar and the reserved cauliflower florets and blanch until tender, 4 to 6 minutes. The vinegar will help keep the cauliflower white. Drain.
10. Melt the remaining 1 tablespoon in a medium frying pan over medium-high heat, swirling the pan occasionally, until the butter turns a rich golden brown. Add the florets and saute until a rich golden brown. Set aside.
11. To serve, reheat the soup. This is a thick soup, but if it seems too thick, add water to thin it to the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
12. Pour the soup into a serving bowl or soup tureen. Top each serving with a few cauliflower florets, several torn croutons, and a stack of beet chips. (If the beet chips sit in the soup, they will become soggy and discolor it.) Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with pepper. Serve the remaining florets, croutons, and chips in separate bowls on the side,

Torn Croutons

• 1 loaf of country bread
• Garlic Oil from Garlic Confit (see recipe)
• 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) unsalted butter

1. Cut the crusts off of the bread. Tear the bread into irregular pieces no larger than 2 inches. You need about 3 cups of croutons; reserve any remaining bread for another use.
2. Pour 1/8 inch of the the garlic oil into a large saute pan and heat over medium heat until hot. Spread the bread in a single layer in the pan (if your pan in not large enough, these can be cooked in two smaller pans.) Add the butter. The oil and butter should be bubbling, but if you hear sizzling. the heat is too high. Adjust the heat as necessary, and stir the croutons often as they cook. Cook until the croutons are crisp and a beautiful rich golden brown on all sides, 15 to 20 minutes. Move the croutons to one side of the pan and keep warm until ready to serve. Torn croutons should be used the day they are made; you can reheat them in a low oven before serving if necessary.

Garlic Confit

• 1 C peeled garlic cloves
• About 2 C of canola oil

1. Cut off and discard the root ends of garlic cloves. Put the cloves in a small saucepan and add enough oil to cover them by about 1 inch - none of the garlic cloves should be poking through the oil.
2. Set the saucepan on a diffuser over medium-low heat. The garlic should cook gently: very small bubbles will come up throught the oil, but the bubbles should not break the surface; adust the heatas necessary and/or move the pan to one side of the diffuser it is cooking to quickly. Cook the garlic for about 40 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so, until the cloves are completely tender when pierced with the tip of knife. Remove the saucepan from the heat and allow the garlic to cool in the oil.
3. Refrigerate the garlic in a covered container, submerged in the oil, for up to 1 week.

Quinoa Salad

Quinoa is one ingredient that just doesn’t get much love at the restaurants. I don’t know if it’s the fact that people don’t really know what it is, or. I’m not really sure what the stigma is.

Saturday was the St. Dominic Block Party and we had to come up with a side dish to bring, and fast. Our thinking was that everyone was going to bring macaroni salad, different variety of lettuce type salad, etc., so we wanted to bring something different but healthy.

Since Saturday was so cool, we dropped off the quinoa salad and went back home to change. When we got back, we went inside to see if could grab some of our quinoa. After checking the tables twice, it was pretty clear that we were too late – gone in fifteen minutes.

Quinoa is known as the chisiya mama or "Mother of All Grain". This stuff is as versatile as rice, has the best amino acid profile of all grain, gluten free, and is very rich in fiber. When I was in New Jersey I ate at a place that made a killer lobster quinoa. I'm hoping that in the future this is something that shows up on more menus.

This recipe below actually came from Einat Admony’s podcast on quinoa. If you’re ever in Manhattan (West Village) you’ve got to go to her small restaurant called Taïm. Regina swears that it is the best falafel she ever had. Admony offers up a great recipe for quinoa salad.


Quinoa Salad

• Quinoa 2-3C
• Chickpeas 1-1/2C
• Celery (chopped) 1C
• Scallions (chopped) 1/2C
• Cilantro (chopped) 1/2C
• Cranberries (dried) 2 Tbsp
• Apricots (dried) 4 Tbsp
• Lemon (fresh squeezed) 2 Tbsp
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil 2 Tbsp
• Salt and Pepper
• Harissa 1 tsp

Directions:

1. Boil the quinoa.
2. Stir and let cook for 10 minutes.
3. Strain and rinse with cold water.
4. Add all ingredients and mix well.