Curried Cream of Crop

Every Tuesday we pick up our farm share in Melrose, which means a whole lot of scrambling for new ways to use up as much carrot and kohlrabi and possible. (It seems the overwhelming chard and kale days are thankfully in the rear view mirror.) So I made this puree of literally our entire produce drawer; it can be a hot soup, cold soup, a way to gussy up some mashed potatoes, a dip for chips, whatever. Today I'm mixing some with cooked lentils as a salad.

The Recipe...

sweat over low heat in a covered dutch oven or heavy saucepan:

3 new onions, sliced thin

1/4 cup olive oil

1 Tbsp curry powder (I like Sun Brand)

1 Tbsp salt

until soft and very fragrant, then add:

4 1/2 cups medium diced carrots

4 cups medium diced kohlrabi

1 cup medium diced salad turnips

5 radishes, quartered

and toss to coat; return cover to pan and continue to sweat 15 minutes; add:

5 cups vegetable stock (I'm a fan of Better Than Bouillon)

2 tsp smoked paprika

and simmer over low heat, covered, for 2 hours; cool and puree with:

14 ounces Greek-style yogurt

adjust seasoning with salt if necessary

East Meets West for Breakfast

Lately - and to my utter shock - my son, Owen, has taken a serious interest in cooking. He'll sneak down into the basement and rifle through my 23-year-old collection of Art Culinaire for bedtime reading. Now if we can just get him to eat all that stuff...

Today he wanted to help me make a special breakfast for his mom, so he hit the pantry: bonito flakes, straw mushrooms, soy sauce, turmeric; the fridge: eggs; and the herb garden: chives. I added konbu, salt, mirin and butter and we came up with this cross between British coddled eggs and Japanese Chawanmushi. (I've always had a thing for egg coddlers - I'd collect them if I could ever remember to maintain a collection.)

5 eggs

1 cup prepared dashi (made w/ the konbu and bonito)

2 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp mirin (use the real thing - like Eden brand)

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp turmeric

7 chives, snipped

6 roasted shiitake caps, small dice (instead of the straw mushrooms)

6 thin pats of butter

- whisk together first 7 ingredients and divide between 6 egg coddlers

- divide diced shiitakes between the six coddlers

- top each with a pat of butter and seal the lids

- cook at a low simmer 18 minutes

(sorry for the fuzzy photo - I need to get the camera to the repair shop)

Unsolicited Frankfurter Ranking with No Accompanying Text

1. Brandt Beef

2. Pearl Kountry Klub

3. Old Neighborhood

Compound Butter for Blistered Vegetables - New Shrimp Dish 7.31.09

At the Grill we quickly saute a handful of gorgeous toybox cherry tomatoes and blanched green beans in olive oil with sea salt, then toss them with a dollop of this butter.

3/4 cup olive oil

3 bulbs garlic, cloves removed peeled and smashed

1 Tbsp salt

1 lb Plugra, large dice

3/4 cup picked marjoram leaves

- over high heat, quickly heat the garlic in the olive oil in a small saucepan

- when garlic begins to brown, lower heat to low; cook 10 minutes

- remove from heat and add butter

- when closer to room temperature, add marjoram and puree in food processor

- as this mixture cools, stir occasionally to distribute marjoram evenly throughout

One Perfect Condiment

Full Disclosure: this is not my recipe. But this is a perfect recipe, and as such, needs to be shared. This is my mother's recipe, and it's so good I served it at the Beard House as the true star of my cheese course, just this and fleur de maquis. And that is how I recommend it - with a creamy cheese such as the aforementioned herb smothered Corsican sheep's cheese, or a triple creme like Pierre Robert. On a triscuit.

Sweet & Sour Red Pepper Jam

12 large red peppers

1 Tbsp salt

1 1/2 lbs sugar

2 cups cider vinegar

1/2 lemon

- seed peppers and grind; toss with salt. Set aside 4 hours

- rinse pepper pulp in cold water; dry as best as possible

- combine pepper puld, sugar, vinegar and lemon in a heavy, nonreactive saucepan over medium heat

- bring to a simmer, lower heat and stir frequently until thickened - about 20 minutes

(if canning, this makes 6 each, 6 ounce jars)

Last Night - 3 More Pics

Next come scallops wrapped in La Quercia speck (smoked prosciutto) with zucchini pancakes (recipe two days ago), creamed corn (recipe to come) and Otis Street Steak Sauce (March).

Then: Sonoran shrimp in a corn puree (recipe to come) with blistered heirloom cherry tomatoes and green beans tossed with a mix of olive oil, butter, toasted garlic and fresh oregano. This is topped with dollops of celery fizz (1/2 tsp soy lecithin, 1 cup celery juice. dash sea salt, whipped up in an immersion blender).

Finally we have local striped bass in a yellow tomato gazpacho (March: golden gazpacho vinaigrette, not a March recipe, but a March entry) with a grilled avocado topped with yesterday's recipe for lobster salad, and those little globes are last night's recipe for pickled grapes.

Last Night @ the G23 - 3 Pics

Here are some shots from last night. As I haven't learned how to do actual captions, I'll provide color commentary here. The duo of crispy fried things are goat cheese croquettes sitting on our Spanishy Tomato Stew (recipe somewhere below). The cheese is Rawson Brook Chevre from western MA, and I have not found its equal. I've been using it since 1995, and I'm proud to say that we're their biggest customer.

The single crispy fried thing is a crabcake. Accompanying it is a grilled, peeled Anaheim chile stuffed with a crabmeat mixture (recipe is under June). The sauce is a June entry as well (Another Tomato Sauce...). The secret to our crabcakes is their lack of stuff. Here's a quick recipe: take Maine crabmeat and gently toss with melted butter and a touch of Old Bay seasoning. Then you'll have to bread it, but this way the filler is on the outside. You don't have to eat the breading if you don't want - it comes off.

Next comes sashimi/tartare. I am generally loathe to serve raw fish (or cooked tuna) in an Asian style preparation, so this is sliced hiramasa (from CleanFish) dressed with olive oil and caraway brown butter powder (May recipe) and bigeye tuna in a gribiche-like sauce (also May), served with a spicy beet-mustard concoction (you guessed it, May) and tzatziki mousse (gotcha, March). The long things are caraway grissini.