playing with fire and water

corn langoustine plantago

There's a prevalent flavor in raw plantago that intrigues me. It's the same nutty oiliness that is found in arugula. It's reminiscent of a nut oil that is starting to go off-- not rancid, but strangely pleasant. Unlike arugula, it's not followed by a sharp bite. Like arugula, it matches well with corn.

Anything cold and easy is all that I crave on these dog days of summer. Fresh corn, put through a juicer along with a chunk of fresh coconut, seasoned with salt and a squeeze of lime, requires little energy to prepare and even less to consume. Swirling on fresh plantago juice and brown buttermilk allows the flavors to meet and mingle on the palate and not be muddied on the plate. A quick salad of langoustine tails, dressed with a light and tangy brown buttermilk vinaigrette completes the dish.

eggs benedict

Some dishes have stood the test of time by honoring tradition. Innovative chefs seek to redefine these classics by examining the flavors and textures that make the dish appealing and attempt to give us a purer, focused version. When successfully executed, the new dish feels like a rarefied distillation of the old. I think this is called refinement.

Eggs Benedict certainly falls prey to this category and I have yet to taste a better interpretation than the one served at WD-50. So good, in fact, that I had it twice on the same day.

Every component on Wylie Dufresne's plate is beyond reproach: Wafer-thin slices of crispy Canadian Bacon. Toasty English Muffin crumbs holding together a mind-bending cube of liquid hollandaise. But it was the egg yolk that did me in. Cooked sous vide at 70C for 17 minutes, egg yolks are transformed to the texture of soft, dense fudge that coats the mouth and leaves the tongue happily lapping over and over it like a dog with peanut butter. (OK, that was just me. That, I'm certain, is not called refinement.)

left: seasoned and whipped egg white quenelles, poached in barely simmering water.

center:  seasoned egg yolks in sealed piping bag,  70C water bath.

right:  piping cooked yolks.

Eggs Benedict v.1.1 

70C egg yolks

brown butter hollandaise

whipped egg whites

crispy serrano ham

bacon curls

crispy ciabatta

plantago

Eggs Benedict v.1.2:  

egg yolk wrapped in serrano ham "cooked" in dehydrator at 150F for 45 minutes. 

brown butter hollandaise

mini English Muffin

plantago

plantago

Plantago is a common weed found in lawns, meadows, and sidewalk cracks. Its common name, plantain, is a misnomer, as it is not related to the plantain (in the banana family) or the plantain lily (Hosta), though the leaves of the broadleaf variety (Plantago major) do resemble those of hosta. 

Plantago grows from a fibrous taproot that produces basal rosette leaves and seed stalks from April through October. When young, all parts of the plant are tender and edible. By midsummer, the leaves toughen and require cooking to render them edible and the mature stalks are too fibrous to eat. An advantage of allowing plantago to grow in the lawn is that mowing curtails seed production, forcing the plant to continuously produce new seed stalks that are tender, nutty, and buttery when only a few inches tall.

Medicinally, plantago is a powerhouse, used as an emollient, astringent, antimicrobial, antiviral, antitoxin, diuretic, demulcent, and vulnerary. When taken internally as a tea, it lowers blood sugar and treats lung and stomach disorders. Externally, as a poultice, it treats sores, burns, stings, rashes, and insect bites.

 

left:  Embryonic seeds on a tender stalk of Plantago major growing in the lawn. 

right:  The mature seed stalks of the narrow-leaf variety (Plantago lanceolata) can be harvested and roasted for a delicious, nutty treat. When soaked, the seeds become mucilaginous (particularly those of P. phsyllium) and are used to in fiber supplement products.

turnip brown mascarpone lemon balm

raw turnip

brown mascarpone

smoked salt

scent of lemon balm

People think I'm quirky when I tell them to listen to their food.

I only mean that mindful observation allows an ingredient to reveal itself.

A newborn turnip, freshly plucked from the earth, spoke to me of the goodness of simplicity.

It's a common language these days, spoken by the corn and tomatoes alike. 

I thought that it might want to be something else, but it said otherwise. 

Behold my perfection, it said.

But a raw turnip on a plate does not a dish make. 

Concept should not supersede content.

(isn't that what went wrong with nouvelle cuisine?)

 

I once asked an artist how they knew when a painting was done. 

The reply was, "You'll know it's done when it's finished".

I asked a chef the same thing and got a similar reply.

But isn't that subjective?

One person revels in embellishment and layers. 

Another wants things stripped to their essence.

Is there a wrong or right?

A chef, like an artist, must engage the senses and make an emotional connection.

Art enters the psyche and becomes part of our soul.

Food penetrates the body and becomes part of our cells.

Oh, the responsibility.

Back to the turnip...

It spoke, and I listened.

I listened to the mascarpone as well. It told me to explore a hidden potential. It wanted to be a more complex version of itself.

Lemon balm had no such aspirations. It only wanted to lend its fragrance to exalt the turnip. Such a humble herb.

If I say that I tasted this dish, that would be inaccurate.

I did not taste the lemon balm, yet its enveloping scent was a vital part of the dish.

I experienced the dish and had to ask if there was anything left to add or take away.

That's when I knew it was done.

raspberry kaffir shortcake

brown butter biscuit

raspberry

kaffir cream

brown butter biscuit

 

When I was learning to bake, I was limited to my mother's repertoire of eggy desserts and cookbooks from the local library.  These were either the Americana "Joy of Cooking"/Betty Crocker genre or the French Julia Child/Jacques Pepin variety. Unlike savory cooking, baking humbled me with its exactitude and thrilled me with the unlimited variations that could be coaxed from a few common ingredients: butter, sugar, flour, eggs, leavening.

It also confounded me with its nomenclature.

It took me awhile to figure out that beignets, fritters, crullers, and churros were all essentially the same thing. Or that a profiterole is a petite cream puff, which has nothing to do with puff pastry. Or that a torte is just a cake with a pedigree and a galette is a free-spirited tart. And one that confuses everybody-- macaron/macaroons-- though they differ by just one letter, they are worlds apart.

What really boggled me is the distinction between a biscuit, a scone, and shortcake. In Britain, a biscuit (from the Latin bis cuit, meaning twice-cooked) refers to what we know is North America as a cookie or cracker. In the US, particularly in the South, a biscuit is a round scone or a shortcake (to "shorten" a dough is to make it tender and flaky by the addition of fat, unlike bread, which has long glutinous starch fibers). A shortcake is a biscuit (or scone) that is split and filled with berries and cream, not to be confused with the sponge-like "shortcakes" that are sold in grocery stores. 

Don't even get me started on shortbread.

To add to the confusion, Wiki defines shortcake as: a sweet biscuit (in the American sense: that is, a crumbly, baking soda- or baking powder-leavened bread, known in British English as a scone), and a dessert made with that biscuit.

See what I mean? 

What I'm not confused about is why I like biscuits and their ilk. First, there's the contrast between the dry, crunchy exterior and the soft, moist interior. It's like eating cake seamlessly wrapped in pastry. Then there's the flavor alchemy of butter and flour, boosted by buttermilk-- sweet and tangy inside, toasty and nutty outside. In the past, I've made biscuits with conventional brown butter (beurre noisette) in an attempt to exploit the toasty flavor. While the flavor was good, the texture seemed to be missing something-- the milk solids, no doubt.  

And, there was certainly no confusion over what to do with the new brown products: butter, cream, buttermilk. In fact, they seemed custom-made for my favorite buttermilk biscuit recipe that I have tweaked over the years. While I was at it, I fully committed to the power of brown by toasting some of the flour (toasting destroys the starch molecules in flour, leaving it inert) and incorporating piloncillo (deeply-flavored unrefined brown sugar). I was sure that after building such a strong team of Maillard players, that they would tackle the taste buds upon contact. 

They didn't.

What they did was play slowly and methodically, overtaking me when I stopped looking. And long after the game should have ended, they were still playing on and on and on.....

Download recipe:   Brown butter biscuits

brown butter

Place a knob of butter in a pan.

Heat until it turns golden brown and smells toasty and nutty.

This is how brown butter has been made since Medieval times. 

During any given day, ideas ebb and flow through the recesses of my often-tired brain. Rarely do I commit them to paper--trusting my memory to retain, file, and recall them at will. I'm delusional that way.

Take, for instance, last year when I showed you how to make mascarpone and experimented with 'caramelizing'* dairy products in sealed mason jars in a pressure cooker. Though the results varied (lebne and sour cream turned out a curdled mess), others, like heavy cream, took on a toasty, nutty aroma that inspired a slew of products. Some of these (whipped cream and butter) I even recorded in black and white in case my recalcitrant memory failed me. Still...

One would think that when I went on to show you how to make butter and played with endless variations of infusing flavor into heavy cream, that I would have remembered the fragrant complexity of the brown cream. But no...

Sometimes it takes a spark of inspiration from someone else's brain to awaken mine. Looking at this gorgeous garlic bread sauce connected the dots and called me to action. 

Now, with brown cream, buttermilk, and butter in hand, my oscillating brain is resolute with possibilities. I'd write them down, but notes get lost and posts are forgotten. Nor will I leave these to my delusions. If I've learned anything, it's to move when inspiration strikes.

 *Referring to the browning of dairy products as 'caramelizing' is inaccurate as pointed out by Robert L. Wolke in his book What Einstein Told His Cook, "the word caramelization should be reserved for the browning of sugar- any kind of sugar- in the absence of protein. When sugars or starches occur together with proteins as they do in onions, breads, and meats, the browning is mostly due to the Maillard reaction, not caramelization."

To make brown cream: Fill a mason jar with heavy cream, leaving a 1/2" of headspace. Seal tightly with a lid and band. Place in a pressure cooker and add enough hot water to the pc to come halfway up the side of the jar. Cover and lock the pc. Cook at 10psi for 2 hours.

To make brown butter:  Follow the directions here: Download Cultured butter, replacing the heavy cream with brown cream and skipping the ripening & ageing step, starting at churning.

The miracle of milk [1 ingredient = 4 products]:  brown cream, brown whipped cream, brown butter, brown buttermilk. All that, without even mentioning cheese.

scallop milkweed curry

I found some old photos of my very first garden. I was taken aback by how pristine it looked-- perfect rows, not a weed in sight. I remember how diligent I was back then. A lot has changed.

I used to think that if I was going to put the time, work and expense into cultivating a patch of earth, that I had the right to choose what could live there-- the freeloaders had plenty of other options. Despite my democratic world views, any semblances of egalitarianism were firmly checked at the garden gate.

Over the years, I've made peace with the weeds. Mostly, I grew tired of feeling defeated. But the softening could also be attributed to a newfound appreciation that runs parallel with an accumulation of life lessons:

Life Lesson Cliche #1: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade (or better yet, wine). I've always collected tender, young dandelion leaves for salads and such, but this year it was gratifying to utilize the blossoms for dandelion wine.

Life Lesson Cliche #2: Pick your battles (aka Parental Survival Tactic #1). I still pull dandelions out of the lawn, but I leave the more tenacious clover for 'textural character'.

Life Lesson Cliche #3: You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse (don't believe it). Even fierce and hostile stinging nettles can be transformed into an elegant and refined soup.

Life Lesson Cliche #4: Shit happens (deal with it). On the morning of an important dinner that I had planned down to the last detail, I went to the rock garden to harvest newly planted cultivars of oxalis that I had purchased for the occasion, only to find that they had been loped off by an animal. The common yellow-flowered oxalis that proliferates everywhere came to the rescue and no one was the wiser.

Life Lesson Cliche #5: Stop and smell the roses (and the weeds). While working in the yard one night, I caught a whiff of a sultry, sweet scent that I couldn't identify. I followed it to a patch of tall plants with large allium-like flowers with a captivating scent that I later identified as milkweed. Though I didn't know what they were then, I instantly recognized the leaves as being the same weed that I had been pulling out of the vegetable garden for years. To make up for my indiscretion, I gave milkweed a place of honor in my flower garden. And because it's edible, it's also welcome in the vegetable garden.

Regarding weeds, the best lesson is: If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em.

scallop ceviche

milkweed

cucumber

curry

salad burnet

milkweed

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is often viewed as a weed because of its tenacious and invasive tendencies. Others categorize it as a beneficial wildflower as it is an important source of nectar for bees, moths, and hummingbirds and it is the only plant that hosts the entire life cycle of the monarch butterfly.

Milkweed gets its name from the sticky white sap that it excretes. The sap is composed of latex, alkaloids, and cardiac glycoside which is toxic to livestock, but is used by the monarch butterfly as a clever defense system.

Despite the potentially harmful sap, milkweed is well documented as an edible wild food. Foragers regard the young spring shoots as a delicacy. The leaves, flowers, and young pods are all edible and abundant. The sap can be drawn out by blanching in boiling water. 

Although I haven't tried the leaves, I can attest that the young pods (harvested at 1-2" long) are quite delicious. When blanched, they have a nice crunch and mild green apple-meets-cucumber flavor. The flowers have a pleasant sweet taste and were once used by indigenous people to make a type of sugar.

green beans fried shallots

Emerite beans

fried shallot cheese

potato broth

fried shallot emulsion

pickled shallot

marjoram blossoms

Green beans are one of the most satisfying plants to grow. They're not fussy about soil, sun, or location and they only require regular picking so that they can continue to do what they do best-- produce.

For many years I've exclusively grown a french filet bean variety called "Emerite", a pole bean that must be grown vertically with support. This is a trait that I prefer over bush beans because they are easier to harvest (no stooping), they stay clean and don't rot from contact with wet soil (a big concern this year), they produce continuously until frost (bush beans have a short, concentrated harvest), and they require less real estate (a 10" wide x 10' long row produces an ample supply of beans for my family of four).

One of the advantages of growing green beans (or any plant) is access to their various stages of growth. When Emerite is in full production, I pick handfuls of the immature pods when they are only 1 to 2 inches long and briefly saute them in butter and a sprinkle of sea salt. These are a rare treat, resembling a mound of green angulas. Late in the season, I let the beans mature and dry on the vine. Within the shriveled, papery pods lies next years crop.

Mostly, I harvest Emerites when they are 4 to 6 inches long, At this stage, they are still slim, straight and tender, their delicate flavor fully developed. One favorite preparation is to saute thinly sliced shallot rings in olive oil until browned and crisp, then toss blanched beans in with the shallots and flavored oil.

Here, I've made fresh cheese infused with the flavor of fried shallots by heating a quart of milk to 135F and adding a half cup of well-drained and crumbled fried shallots, then covering and allowing the mixture to infuse for about 30 minutes. The shallots are then strained from the milk and the milk is reheated to 100F. A tablet of rennet is dissolved in a teaspoon of water and added to the milk. Once the rennet is added, it should be stirred in gently and briefly as any agitation at this point will disrupt coagulation. Cover the pan and allow to sit undisturbed for 30 minutes. Once the curds form, they are scooped into a ring mold lined with blanched Emerites, which act as a case for the cheese. As the curds compress and the whey drains away, the level of the cheese will sink and more curds can be added until they reach the desired level. The cheese will be firm enough to unmold and hold its shape after about 4 hours.