I love rhubarb. I love it for it's old fashioned vibe. I love it for it's color, striking tartness, and even for it's moderate shelf life. I also love it for showing up so darn early in the spring and sticking around for several months. And I too was at first intimidated by those long, irregular-shaped, tough magenta stalks at the market. I actually overheard a conversation at our market up here recently, where a woman who had just bought a weekend house near the Delaware discovered she had huge decades-old rhubarb plants growing on her property. However she didn't know when it was time to pick them. Nor did the young woman working the farm stand, so I jumped in with what I knew. She had been waiting for them to turn red, ripen, to pick. I explained that some heirloom varieties, have very little red, and the stalks can range from thin to the thicker more uniform we're used to seeing in grocery stores. I generally go by feel, but you can harvest stalks when between ten and fifteen inches long, avoiding letting them go too long and become tough, dry or woody. Once you get your rhubarb back you your kitchen, from yard or market, they really are one of the most simple fruit to prepare. Make sure all traces of the leaves are trimmed off, as they are not edible. Rhubarb have a bad rap for being stringy, as in celery stringy, but as long as they are cut in small pieces before cooked, the strings will not be a nuisance. For good measure, or habit, I tend to peel two or three strings off each stalk, from end to end, but not too much, as you are also peeling off any of the great magenta color. Wash the stalks well and then cut into slices between an half inch and an inch thick. You can then roast the pieces, throw them in to brighten up a rich stew, or as I do most often, simmer them down to a quick rhubarb puree or sauce. Pack the rhubarb into a sauce pan or small pot that holds the pieces sort of snugly. Add enough water to come up about 3/4 of the way up the sides of the slices, and simmer over a medium-low heat, until the rhubarb has broken down and is tender. Add more water if the mixture seems to be getting to dry or risking burning at all. When finished you can mash it up a little to have a sauce with more texture, or use a food processor, blender or immersion blender to give you smoother final product. If you are looking to use the sauce as a topping by itself, add about a tablespoon of sugar per large stalk of rhubarb when simmering down, or another classic way to cut rhubarb's intense sourness is to add at least 1 part strawberries for every 3 parts rhubarb when starting the sauce. Taste when finished and adjust sweetness if necessary. Vanilla beans, ginger, orange, cinnamon, almost all berries and apples are all great additions as well. Make a big batch. Eat it warm or ice cold. Spoon it over ice cream, blend it into cream cheese, swirl it in yogurt or oatmeal, drizzle it over a wedge of Stilton or duck or game meats, whisk it into your vinaigrette, blend it with ice for your margarita. Really, what other fruit, the northeast no less, is quite so versatile? | ||||||||||||||||
This frenchy-french-french tart has the lusciousness of fall written all over it. Spectacular for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, it is also glorious with a crisp green salad. And it freezes really well. So with it almost taking as much work to make one as to make two, do just that and stock yourself with a fast food gift in your freezer for some bleak mid-winter eve. This can of course be made vegetarian, and equally good, by omitting the bacon, and substituting two tablespoons of butter, for the bacon fat, for sauteing the leeks. Leek Bacon and Gruyere Tart by Catie Schwalb makes one 9" tart. (more…) | ||||||||||||||||
This is a peach pie my grandmother has made for years. I adore the visual of the entire peach halves, that always elicits at least one gasp of admiration when set down on the table. With peaches stunningly sweet this time in the season, I also really appreciate the addition of the custard-like filling, instead of the usual toss with cinnamon and sugar. Though it does contain sugar, the custard-souffle-y filling really compliments the fruit and cuts the sweetness some. This pie is also really beautiful, and really delicious, with blueberries tucked into the spaces and cavities in and around the peaches. Summer overload in a crust. I haven't tried it, but I imagine raspberries wouldn't be awful either.
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So here is another recipe handed down from Catherine the Great. No, not the Empress of Russia, but my maternal grandmother--one of my first cooking influences, and for whom I am named. I make this pie at least once a year. I can't keep myself from it as soon as I see quarts of local strawberries showing up on the tables at the farmers' markets. It is simple as pie (pun intended). A great buttery crust, plump, fresh, raw strawberries, and a quick jammy glaze. Fruit and high quality carbs: two tastes that should always go together. It is reminiscent of toast and jam, strawberry short cake, or dare I say...pop tart? Since the ingredients are so sparse, the quality of the products you use is paramount. Make a wonderful, flaky, homemade pie crust, use a golden farm-fresh egg and great butter, and above all, use amazing strawberries at the height of their season. It just won't be that great otherwise. Also, because the strawberry flavor can vary a lot from sour to sweet, start slowly with the sugar and the lemon juice in the glaze, and adjust as necessary depending on the flavor of the strawberries you are using. (more…) | ||||||||||||||||
As hinted at earlier this week, asparagus is bustin' out all over on our micro-farm. One of the very first signs of a long season of fresh food from the gardens, this perennial faithfully returns each May, basically without us having to do a thing. (That's my kind of garden vegetable!) Since it is never better than right now, we'll eat just-picked asparagus almost every night for dinner for the next several weeks. Then finally, when we can't stand it anymore, which fortunately is right about when the asparagus season peters out, we'll put our asparagus habit to bed for another 11 months. Once you've had it this fresh and this good, you are spoiled for anything trying to masquerade as asparagus in the rest of the year. But it is a challenge to keep it interesting in the dinners ahead. Even as good as it is, when having asparagus almost nightly, sauteing, grilling, and soup-ing gets old quickly. This savory galette was a very welcomed change, and was gobbled up quickly last evening. It would also be wonderful for brunch, or cut in small squares for late spring hors d'oeuvres. I have been on a galette with corners kick this year, but feel free to form it in the more traditional round shape, or any free-form shape that works for you and your stalks.
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Soon after I finished culinary school a wise and wonderful chef and cookbook author asked me, as I was first meeting her, what kind of food do you cook? I was a little stumped. I was just out of a year of cooking little other than classical french cuisine. And a year of cooking predetermined recipes that I had to master, in order to learn said classical french cuisine. Eating locally, and seasonally, and knowing where my ingredients come from are always paramount when I cook, but beyond "farm to table", I didn't really have a ready response as far as my personal style with food. But after some introspection, I think at least one of my approaches to cooking, though perhaps somewhat obvious, is to get the finest possible ingredients, at the height of their season or freshness, from the best possible sources, and then: get out of their way. Or compliment their strengths that are already therein, rather than transforming or imposing. At least that's the goal. How can I possibly improve upon a homegrown, just-picked Jaune Flamme heirloom tomato, drizzled with exceptional olive oil and a hit of crunchy fleur de sel? This recipe does just that. Blood oranges are in season right now, and at the height of their glorious flavor. They are a stunning deep garnet color, with a taste that ranges from orange to raspberry to grape. A phenomenal homemade pastry crust, along with the roasted fruit, this galette reminds me a lot of my great grandmother's jam-filled thumbprint cookies, or a very sophisticated Pop-Tart. And brings some necessary brightness to a dull week of winter. (more…) | ||||||||||||||||
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Catie Baumer Schwalb is a chef, food writer and photographer, who splits her life between the city and the country. Not too long ago Catie was a New York City based actress and playwright for more than a decade. She has her Master of Fine Arts from the National Theater Conservatory, and her Grand Diplôme in classic culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute in New York City.
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