One of the rewards of following a farmer’s market is to begin to understand when produce truly comes in season in your area. I was surprised to learn that spring and even early summer is still all about greens in Colorado, with only a few other vegetables making an appearance before mid-June. Now this is slowly starting to change, and things are about to get a lot more interesting.
After a rainy May a cookout seems like just the thing. Especially when the fare includes “Colorado Buff Burgers” made of delicous and nutritious ground bison (buffalo) from High Wire Ranch. High Wire has been raising bison and elk naturally and sustainably since 1981 in Hotchkiss, Colorado. The advantages of bison over beef are well known: less fat and calories and, to many, a better taste. This particular bison is grass and hay fed, contains no hormones or antibiotics, and is USDA inspected and monitored for CWD.
No burger is really complete without cheese, so we top these beauties with MouCo ColoRouge, a distinctive soft-ripened cheese with a pale-orange natrual rind. Red onions complete the illusion, briefly sauteéd and finished with a little sherry vinegar.
Behind MouCo is a family of cheesemakers with a great deal of exprience making soft-ripened cheese in Europe. It shows. Like La Quercia, they are making traditionally European products here that compete very well with the best in the world.
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I recently received a copy of Edible Front Range, the latest locally focused magazine in the Edible Communities line-up. This is great writing about our local Colorado food scene, and we are lucky to have it. In a great article about spring vegetables, Lynn Eppel offers a simple but compelling recipe for Smashed Radishes. With almost perfect timing, Abbondanza Organic Seeds & Produce brought gorgeous Pink Beauty radishes to the market. I made this recipe, with minor variations, and served it to great effect with burgers on the grill.
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Broccoli Rabe, in Italian Rapini, is another unlikely relation to the turnip. The name suggests common broccoli but this is not the case, either taxonomically or in terms of taste. I’ve always chopped unpeeled rapini coarsely, blanched for two or three minutes in salted water, sautéed, then turned down the heat and covered the pan, effectively braising. Marcella has a very different approach: she peels the thicker stalks, chops coarsely and blanches for fifteen minutes in heavily salted water, then sautés briefly at high heat. She also adds chickpeas, or ceci, the sweetness of which balances the bitterness of the rapini beautifully, and a little red pepper to liven things up.
I cooked the dish with local rapini Marcella-style, and also with my old method. There is no comparison: the longer blanch and brief sauté creates a tender yet crisp result, much less mushy, and with brighter flavors.
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With Memorial Day weekend comes the Boulder Creek Festival, and the Farmer’s Market has a very different vibe this day. It’s smaller and many regulars take the day off; some growers skip it all together. Among the visitors there’s more “see and be seen” and less buying than usual.
But the stalwarts are here, and Red Wagon Organic Farm has brought some very pretty bok choy indeed. Bok choy, or chinese cabbage, is related to common cabbage and also to the turnip (who knew?). But what to do with it? In many dishes the leaves are discarded and the stalk is used chopped, like celery, almost as an afterthought. The leaves, however, are delicious as greens, and the weather has turned cold and rainy… A famous Shanghai-style dish, Lion’s Heads, will fill the bill perfectly.
Basically a stew of meatballs (lion’s heads) and greens (lion’s mane), there are many variations of this dish. In some variations the greens are sautéed first and served fairly dry with the meatballs; I have opted for a brothier, stewier version.
Lion’s Heads - Shanghai-style Meatballs
Chop bok choy greens crosswise in 1 inch strips, and chop part of the remaining stalks in 1/4″ slices. I used about half of the stalks. Whisk together soy, sesame oil, and cornstarch. Mix meats together with ginger, garlic, and green onion, then add 1/2 of soy mixture and the egg. Make meatballs. The classic dish calls for 4 huge meatballs, I prefer 6 to 10 smaller ones. Brown the meatballs on all sides in a wok or sauté pan. Choose another pan large enough to accomodate all the meatballs in one layer. Add the stock, bring it to a boil, then add meatballs. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes, turning meatballs once. Add sliced bok choy to the liquid, drape the greens over the meatballs, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes more, allowing the greens to steam. Uncover, add remaining soy mixture, stir well, and bring to boil to thicken the broth slightly. Serve in bowls, with rice if desired.
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Beautiful white turnips from Red Wagon Organic Farm were certainly the most eye-catching produce at Saturday’s market, so into the bag they went. I’ve always thought that most of the white root vegetables go through life wishing that they were potatoes: turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, yucca and so on; all can seem sweetish and insipid, and are too often consumed more out of necessity than pleasure. With a closed mind, I’ve never cooked a turnip before, and have only vague memories of eating them, British-style, overcooked and mashed with butter.
Mario Batali to the rescue: a quick web search turned up an interesting recipe on the food network.
Adapted from Batali’s Pan-Roasted Turnips with Poppy and Paprika
This is a great dish: the vinegar and paprika balance the sweetness of the turnips, and the poppy seed adds a nice crunch.
Remove tops and clean turnips with a vegetable brush. Mario quarters them, but the resulting chunks looked too big, so I halved each again. Season with salt and pepper. Heat butter over medium-high heat until it starts to brown, add turnips and poppy seeds and toss to coat. Cook until nicely browned, add paprika, then vinegar. Serve when vinegar is cooked away. Delicious.
Extra points for anyone who recognizes the serving dish.
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A perfect roast chicken is simplicity itself: start with a beautiful roaster from Wisdom’s Natural Poultry and use a recipe from Thomas Keller. New to the Boulder Farmer’s market this year, Wisdom’s chickens are Colorado-grown, free range, and all natural. They don’t have a web site yet, but here is an interesting and informative article about the family-run operation in Haxun, Colorado. They also raise turkeys, and bring a limited number of fresh eggs to the Saturday market.
Thomas Keller’s Favorite Simple Roast Chicken
Great roast chicken is about tender, moist meat and a crisp skin. Thomas Keller, of French Laundry fame, roasts his chickens very hot and with minimal preparation. Rinse and dry the bird, season the cavity with salt and pepper, and truss. Liberally salt the skin, and roast at 450 degrees for about an hour for a 3 pound bird. Be sure to rest the chicken for at least 15 minutes before carving. Find the complete recipe here.
Baby Kale Sauté
Marcella Hazan has new cookbook, Marcella Says, and in it she insists that greens should always be blanched before sauteéing. I took this to heart, using this technique with baby kale from Red Wagon Organic Farm.
Blanch kale in salted water (2 Tb/gallon), and dry as well as possible, even squeezing out water. Sauté garlic in oil for a minute, then add kale and cook at high heat, slightly browning kale. Add a dash of soy for a little umami, optional.
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Wisdom’s Natural Poultry
Many and varied early greens still dominate at the Farmer’s Market, so I picked out something a little bit kinky: beautiful baby Mizuna from Red Wagon Organic Farm. This spicy green is also called Japanese Mustard, and is often a component of mesclun (mixed assorted baby greens). It’s great on its own, as this simple wilted salad shows.
Wilted Mizuna Salad
Heat vinegar, soy, and sesame in a small saucepan but do not simmer. Add pepper to taste. Toss warm dressing with Mizuna and serve.
Michael Symon’s Braised Lamb Shanks In Yogurt Sauce
Michael Symon calls his food “farm driven american,” but he definitely has a Greek thing going on. Wanting to cook with Fage yogurt (2% in this case), I paired the Wilted Mizuna salad with his Braised Lamb Shanks In Yogurt Sauce recipe from a great article about Greek yogurt in the New York Times. Killer!
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Fage yogurt will change your life. Like most all Greek yogurt, it is strained to remove most of the whey; the result is thick and creamy beyond belief. Available at Whole Foods in “Classic” (full-fat), 2%, and 0% (non-fat), even the 0% makes all other yogurt seem thin and flavorless. The culinary possibilities are many: use it to replace crème fraîche or sour cream in any recipe, and with a light touch substitute for butter or heavy cream in others.
Every week there’s more to choose from. I couldn’t decide between baby beets from Jay Hill Farm or the very first asparagus of the season from Miller Farms (picked at 5am Saturday morning!) … so I bought both. What could be a better foil for simple vegetable dishes than a classic soufleé prepared with local cheese from Haystack Mountain? Queso de Mano is Haystack’s first raw goat’s milk cheese, very reminicient of manchego, and it substitutes perfectly for the gruyère in a classic cheese soufleé.
Prepare the asparagus by snapping off the lower, woodier part. Bend firmly, and the stalk will naturally break at just the right place. Rustics leave the skin on, but I prefer to peel the lower part of the remaining stalk with a vegetable peeler. Slather the asparagus with olive oil, add kosher salt, then grill or broil until done. Asparagus cooks very quickly: use tongs and turn often until nicely colored, and don’t leave unattended.
Baby beets also deserve a light touch. Reserve the greens, discard the stems, and peel the beet proper and slice thin, about 1/8″. Sauté in olive oil for a few minutes, then add greens and cook a few minutes more. Add kosher salt to taste.
A dash of soy would add that certain umami je ne sais quoi, but the delicate flavor of the tender young beets might not show through.
Soufleé is enjoying a second 15 minutes of fame: millions watched as Top Chef contestants completely butchered this simple, classic dish. These chefs are certainly competent, but their lack of familiarity shows just how far this preparation has fallen out of fashion. Revive the soufleé!
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Separate the eggs, reserving both whites and yolks. Combine whites, adding one extra. Butter inside of a charlotte pan, and coat evenly with grated parmesan cheese or flour (more classic). The coatings are optional, but either will help to achieve a nice side-crust and discourage sticking.
Melt butter and mix well with flour to a smooth paste but do not color. Whisk in milk, and simmer until thickened. Whisk in cheese. Off heat, whisk in egg yolks one by one. Add pepper to taste.
Whip four egg whites in mixer to stiff peaks. Quickly but gently fold in egg whites, mixing well. Pour result into prepared charlotte pan. Reduce oven to 350 degrees, and bake for 30 minutes. The top should rise and brown attractively - do not overcook.
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