parsley oil

It's hard to imagine cooking without parsley. A workhorse in the kitchen, parsley's bright herbaceous flavor lets it go places where other flavors can't. Equally at home in the background or at center stage, it is perhaps most useful at bridging disparate flavors.

In the garden, it's one of the last herbs to succumb to frost, and quick to resurrect in the spring. As a biennial, it's life cycle is limited to two growing seasons, but letting the seeds ripen and self-sow in the second year ensures successive crops.

In my everyday cooking, I can think of few dishes that wouldn't benefit from a bit of parsley and I'll admit that I use it less judiciously than black pepper, whose distinct flavor can easily overwhelm and is often overused as a seasoning. With that said, crushed black pepper and freshly minced parsley make a fine seasoning.

It's so versatile that it's rare that I find myself with leftover parsley. In those instances, I stockpile the stems in the freezer and toss leaves into salads. Or, when there's a considerable amount, I make parsley oil.

Making parsley oil is as simple as pureeing parsley leaves in a blender with oil and straining through a coffee filter. The more oil used, the faster it will strain and the higher the yield, but there will be less flavor.

In spring, the oil is fantastic drizzled on seasonal fare: smashed new potatoes and peas (with a sprinkle of nutmeg), asparagus veloute, roasted fiddleheads, fresh ricotta with honey, and it will make anything that comes off the grill sing. It's also a flavorful medium in which to poach, or confit, fish if you keep the temperature below 50C so the flavor doesn't turn woody. That's where this cuttlefish tentacle was heading, but looking at the parsley root that it was to be served with, it made more sense to place the flavor there. Raw parsley root tastes a lot like fresh parsley, but becomes sweet and earthy when cooked. Gently cooking it in parsley oil and letting it macerate overnight transforms the flavor and color to a bright, beautiful green.

Celebrating the flavors of spring: cuttlefish, parsley root, meyer lemon, and toasted almond gremolata.

barley salad

Salads, like a wardrobe, change with the seasons. In winter, grains stand in for the leafy greens that are abundant in the warmer months and I look to my windowsill instead of the herb garden for flavor power ups. Fruits and vegetables, the mementos of summer, are culled from jars instead of bins.

The dressings for these salads vary as widely as the components, even within the parameters of a classic vinaigrette: 3 parts oil to 1 part acid. Oils pressed from seeds, nuts, grains, and fruit each possess their own personalities and can be further customised with aromatics. And oils aren't limited to plants— hot rendered animal fats can transform coarse greens and grains into something special.

Acids offer even more variety as they can be made from, or flavored with, almost anything and needn't be restricted to just vinegar and citrus. Sour fruit juices such as verjus, tamarind, passion fruit, crabapple, rose hips, plums, rhubarb, and pomegranate make fruity dressings bursting with sweet, tangy flavors when the oil ratio is lowered to double the amount of juice. Most milk products lack acidic presence, but kefir whey makes a kicky dressing that feels light on the palate with a milky background.

With a wide and varied palette of flavors at hand, your mind and palate will never be bored, and a meal as ordinary as salad, with little effort, can be made extraordinary.

This barley salad was dressed with passion fruit juice, rice bran oil, shallots, and hishio, a type of barley miso. Herbs from the windowsill include mitsuba (Cryptotaenia japonica), saltwort (Salsola kornarovil), and sedum (Sempervivum tectorum). And from the pantry are: burdock ribbons pickled in coconut vinegar, Rainier cherries preserved in umeboshi and simple syrup, and ground cherries (Physalis pruinosa) preserved in sake.

miso-cured oyster

Oysters can be cured in miso in less than a week. I left some to cure longer, but five days seemed to be the magic number for optimum flavor and texture in this particular batch. Of course, this could vary depending on the size of oysters and the type of miso used.

To make miso-cured oysters: Steam scrubbed oysters just until they open. Remove the oysters from shell and place them on paper towels to dry. If using shells for curing, sterilize them in boiling water for 5 minutes, then allow them to cool and dry. Spread a 1/2" thick layer of miso in the bottom of each shell. Cover miso with a layer of cheesecloth, then an oyster. Cover the oysters with cheesecloth, then another layer of miso, and finally, the top shell. Layer oysters in a sterilized container, cover tightly, and allow to cure in refrigerator for 3-7 days.

miso-cured oyster ✢ kombu aioli ✢ mushroom crisps ✢ ngo om

The assertive flavor of kombu and garlic is a good compliment to the meaty oyster and earthy mushrooms, brightened by refreshing bursts of cucumber provided by the ngo om (rice paddy herb).

After the oysters were gone, we happily nibbled on the aioli and mushrooms.

kombu aioli

6g garlic
3g salt
2 egg yolks
60g rice wine vinegar
200g olive oil
10g kombu powder*

Place the garlic, salt, egg yolks, and vinegar in a blender or food processor and processes until well blended. With the motor running, very slowly drizzle in the oil until thick and emulsified. Add the kombu powder and process briefly until blended. Scrape out aioli into a bowl, cover and let refrigerate for 2-3 hours to allow kombu to hydrate and flavors to mellow. Stir before serving.
* kombu powder can be made by grinding pieces of dried kombu sheets in a spice grinder to a fine dust.

mushroom crisps

small king oyster mushrooms lend themselves well to crisping because of their thick meaty stems.

With a vegetable peeler, shave thin slices of mushrooms by imbedding the blade of the peeler into the cap and dragging to the base. Lay the mushroom slices out in a single layer on a sheet pan and allow to air-dry for 1-2 hours, until their edges begin to curl. Lightly brush or mist the slices with a thin layer of olive oil. Bake in a 149C/300F oven for 4-5 minutes, or until they are golden and crisp. Lightly sprinkle with salt and serve immediately.

lime basil tomato martini

There is transient beauty in a dying garden; an intimacy that is gained by observing its natural progression.

Looking around at the tracery of brittle stems, shriveled leaves, and the determination of fruit clinging to withering vines, I see the loveliness of imperfection, the quiet dignity and grace, the stamp of passing time.
The Japanese call this wabi-sabi.
I call it the poetry of decay.

There is, however, nothing poetic about cleaning up all of this decay. It's hard work. It merits the reward of a libation.

It seems that anything can be called a martini these days. I'm not a purist, but to me, a martini is not defined by the vessel that it's served in, but by the inclusion of gin and vermouth. Beyond that, any added flavor is fair game.

lime basil tomato martini

2 oz. lime basil-infused gin, chilled
1/2 oz. dry vermouth, chilled
1/2 oz. filtered tomato water, chilled
2 cocktail tomatoes, speared on a sprig of basil

Place liquids in chilled cocktail shaker with 2 cubes of ice. Shake and strain into chilled martini glass. Garnish with cocktail tomatoes.

To make lime basil infused gin: Pack an isi whipper with fresh lime basil that has been lightly crushed. Half-fill the canister with gin. Cover and charge with 1 N2O cartridge. Shake slowly for 1 minute. Rapidly discharge gas. Uncover and allow to stand for 3 minutes before straining. Chill.

To make tomato water: Cut Ripe tomatoes in half horizontally. Set a sieve over a bowl and squeeze out the seed sacs and liquid from tomato halves. Reserve the tomato flesh for another use (if you peel the tomatoes beforehand, the flesh can be diced into concassé). Press on the solids in the sieve to extract as much liquid as possible. Pass the liquid through a micro filter or a coffee filter, without pressing, to produce clear tomato water. Alternately, the sieved liquid can be allowed to stand until the solids settle to the bottom, and the clear liquid can be spooned from the top.

To make cocktail tomatoes: Cut a small, shallow slit in the stem ends of cherry tomatoes (I used Sungolds and Sweet 100s). Drop them into a pot of boiling water for 5 seconds, or until the skins rip open. Immediately remove to a bath of ice water. Slip the skins off each tomato and layer them in a sterilized glass jar with coarse salt (1 teaspoon per pint). Pour in enough dry vermouth to cover the tomatoes by 1/2". Let the tomatoes cure in the refrigerator for 2 days before using.

summer pasta

In these, the last days of summer, autumn encroaches clever and lithe.

I try to ignore the signs, but it's worse than that.

I see the chlorophyll drain from the leaves and tell myself it's just the sun. I notice the flowers looking dry and wan and say it's because I didn't give them enough water. And… isn't the goldenrod blooming extra early this year?

I'm in denial.

It's not because I dislike autumn. I don't. But because I will miss summer.

It's not even that it's been a good summer. It hasn't! Losing my father cements it as one that I will poignantly remember forever.

Still… I hate to see it go.

I think what I'll miss most is the bounty at my fingertips.
The joyful sight of fruits on the vine.
The perfume of herbs baking in the sun.
The many colors of ripe.
Nature, in all of her white-hot intensity.

But it's not over yet.

As the sun arcs lower in the sky and night grows longer and cooler, summer vegetables rush to put out their last flush. It's a well known fact that leafy greens, crucifers, and root vegetables taste sweeter when nipped by cold, but I would swear that late-season tomatoes and corn are the best of all. They are only sweeter in memory.

Colors and flavors, the icons of summer, are arranged atop a swath of emulsified tomato milk like notes on a scale. A seasonal keyboard.

Tucked in between are tubes of parmesan pasta. I'll tell you about those next time.

These are covered by a strip of reduced corn juice, thickened by its inherent starch and bursting with flavor. Its form is controlled by freezing, then tempered to a fluid sauce.

Just for this dish, I ignore my tendency towards minimalism, my carefully managed urge to over garnish. I lay it all out. Let nature play all of her notes at once. A crescendo of flowers and herbs.

This is my tribute. An homage. A celebration.
The swan song of summer.

bread and tomato water

While it's true that fruits and vegetables are often at their best at a certain time and place, I'm not a slave to eating seasonally or locally or [insert buzzword]-ly. There are so many opinions and discussions on the topic, but as far as I'm concerned, quality gets the final word.
Right now, on my patch of earth, there's a whole lotta quality to be found.

In late August, the local tomatoes clearly demonstrate the tenet of simple preparations. They are of optimum quality and so abundant that they make their way into nearly every meal. A quick and satisfying lunch involves nothing more than thick slices, sprinkled with salt and drizzled with good olive oil. The best part comes at the end— the umami-laden tomato water that collects at the bottom of the bowl. When meals are that casual, etiquette is tossed aside, and the savory juices are noisily slurped directly from the bowl.

If there is good bread at hand, a hunk is used to mop up the juices. The yeasty, malty flavor and chewy texture changes the taste entirely— transforms it into something else. If I had been brought up in an Italian house I would compare it to Panzanella, but my bread and tomato association leads to Açorda.

Açorda is a rustic bread soup from Portugal. At its most basic, it's made by pouring a water, garlic, cilantro, and olive oil broth over day-old bread. Typically, the bread used is Broa— a dense, round loaf made with wheat flour, enriched with cornmeal.

There are gussied-up versions of Açorda; my favorite involves prawns cooked in the broth with tomatoes. For today, I've ignored the prawns and the cooking, but kept the impression of the dish with a hunk of my mother's excellent Broa soaked with seasoned red and yellow tomato water, olive oil, garlic bulbils, green coriander seeds and sprigs.

Outside of summer, it would never occur to me to attempt a dish whose sheer simplicity relies entirely on an ingredient used at its pinnacle of flavor. Like it's inspiration, it's a humble dish— the food of peasants. But it's also profoundly good and begs a revision to an old adage:

[wo]man can live [happily] on bread and [tomato]water alone!

lamb coconut yogurt garlic

Garlic scapes are the flowering seed heads and stems of hard neck garlic varieties. It used to be that farmers removed them to direct the plant's energy into developing the bulb rather than the seeds, and would discard them. At some point, an enterprising farmer thought the mildly-flavored scapes were a marketable novelty, and now they are popular seasonal treats at farmers markets. Incidental crops like these are often a win-win situation.

When harvested just as they begin to curl, the stems are tender and mild. By the time that the seeds begin to form, they harden and become tough. At that stage, I like to use them as skewers for grilled meats and vegetables, allowing heat to release their aroma and infuse the food from within.

This dish is loosely based on souvlaki, with deliberate Greek flavors. Instead of the ubiquitous oregano, I used winter savory (Satureja montana), an under-utilized perennial herb that tastes like a blend of thyme, pine, and lemon, to season the lamb and tzatziki.

The tzatziki was made with yogurt curds, which readily form when yogurt is gently heated to 170F/76C. The process is identical to making ricotta, but as the yogurt is already acidic, it doesn't require the addition of buttermilk. The curds are folded into coconut milk, along with savory, garlic and cucumber.

The ground lamb is blended with minced aromatics (savory, onion, garlic scapes) and coconut powder, then wrapped in a blanched fig leaf and grilled.

I know that gif's are sometimes annoying, and even though these shots are overexposed, I thought that it effectively demonstrated the leaf-folding technique.
Actually, I'm kind of mesmerized by it. I'm alternately disturbed and amused by the furling and unfurling. As it folds up, I think "Silencing of the Lamb", then it pops open, exposing itself like a Cypriot burlesque queen.

infusions: a revolutionary technique

On the days when I work at home, my morning starts with reading emails over a cup of coffee. Today, though, I took some extra time to catch up on blog reading.

One of my favorites, Cooking Issues, put up a post this morning about infusion that, quite frankly, changed my life. No joke. When your life and your livelihood revolve around food, and your obsessions include plants and aroma, then this post was truly life-altering.

Extracting flavor and aroma from plants has long been a source of frustration for me. Without a rotovap or chamber vacuum, I've had to resort to conventional methods of infusion that can take days, sometimes weeks. That's all changed now, thanks to Dave Arnold and an isi whipper.

Dave's revolutionary infusion method involves packing aromatics and liquid into an isi whipper, charging it with N2O, waiting 60 seconds before opening the canister and straining. The depressurized gas disrupts the cells, releasing aroma into the liquid. The beauty of this technique is that it is simple, quick, and inexpensive.

After I calmed down, I tried to work. Really, I did. But I was too distracted. I had to take inventory of my chargers and figure out how soon I could get more. And I kept thinking of all the herbs, flowers, and seeds in my garden, pantry and refrigerator.

Despite a crushing deadline, I took a few hours off to play. My reward is a refrigerator stocked with a dozen or so jars of brilliant infusions.

It's nearly midnight as I write this, and I have hours of work to make up. It's gonna be a long night, but I had to take a few minutes to share this with you. Maybe it will change your life, too.

popsicles

I'm always looking for uses for plant materials that are often overlooked or discarded because they're too fibrous to eat.
Wild carrot stems may appear thin and fragile, but are rigid and strong enough to support these popsicles.

Layering is one way to control progression of flavors.
Usually, in the context of a meal, flavors progress from savory to sweet.
Here, they move from sweet to savory, starting with wild carrot syrup, then on to naturally sweet casaba melon, and ending with fig leaf tea.

The popsicles were molded in silicone plastique molds made from test tubes.
Don't try freezing liquids in thin glass molds. Trust me.

the simple charm of wild carrots

A new attitude is really just a change in perception. It's what makes one man's rags another man's riches. It's how a weed becomes a charming flower.

And, yes, the wild carrot has many charms.

Take, for instance, one of its common names: Queen Anne's lace.

OK, maybe you have to be a girl (or an Anglophile) to appreciate that one.

And then there's the flowers, all lacy and white, but they can be any color you like. If you put the cut stems in water stained with food color, the blossoms will change color right before your eyes. They're chameleons that way.

What it doesn't have, at this stage, is a lot of edible parts. But because it's so aromatic, it has plenty of extractable flavor.

Simple infusions are one way to capture the flavor. In these very busy days of summer, simple is good.

And it doesn't get more simple than this. The only hard part is the waiting.

I picked my first cucumber and serrano pepper from the garden on the day that the vinegar was ready. It made sense to toss them together in a light salad. Cool cucumbers and hot peppers are a nice contrast.

I let the syrup infuse for just over a week, until the wild carrot flavor was good and concentrated. I have lots of fun, simple plans for this syrup. One of them is to drizzle it over grilled carrots: wild carrot-candied carrots.

But since the cucumbers are coming in fast and furious, my attention went back to them. This time, I pickled slices of the cucumber in the vinegar, spiked with serrano, then topped them with a dollop of syrup, whipped with 5% versawhip. The whipped syrup looks like a rich whipped cream, but with pure, clean flavor and a lightness that cream cannot imagine.

I served the sweet-tart-spicy-cool-creamy bite in a nest of fuzzy wild carrot seeds so that when my fingers rubbed against it to pick it up, they carried the scent of wild carrots to my nose.

Quite simply, wild carrots have me charmed.